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50 Cents 


Xoveire Unternational Scries 


He Fell Among 
Thieves 


BY 

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 

AND , 

HENRY HERMAN 

Authors of “The Bishops’ Bible,” Etc. 


Aiithori:{ed Edition 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place 

Every work in this series is published by arrangement with the author 

Issued Weekly. Annual Subscription, $15.00. June 9, 1891. 

Entered at New York Pest Office as second-class matter. 











Xovell’e irntcrnational Series, IRo. 166. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES 


(} 




DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 


AND 


HENRY HERMAN 

AUTHORS OF 


“THE bishop's BIBLE,” ETC. 


tAuthori^ed Edition 


SEP - ^ m 

'^4SH1NQ'T°^ 


V<^ 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 



\ 


' : > V 


Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


CHAPTER 1. 

The Five-Year-Old Club, in Albemarle Street, 
was originally started for a purpose which, in the 
eyes of its founder at least, was one of the most 
laudable in the world. The venerable Earl of Bridge- 
bourne and his equally venerable crony General 
Ingoldsbey were lamenting, as elderly gentlemen will 
do upon occasion, the decadence of the times. They 
agreed with conviction that nothing was as good as 
it used to be. The weather was not as warm, the 
port was not so well flavoured or so wholesome, the 
young women were not as pretty as they used to be. 
The Most Noble the Marquis of Becksworth sat by 
and listened to the diatribes of his friends, and by and 
by offered them a new theme for sorrow in respect 
to which all three grew eloquent. The women, 
the wine, and the weather were past mending, but 
in the matter suggested by the marquis there was 
something to be done. He spoke of the rarity of 

e B 


2 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


mutton killed for the table at a proper age, and the 
venerable earl, in a flush of inspiration, created by 
the mere utterance of a phrase the Five-Year-Old 
Club. The association had no other purpose than the 
rearing of five-year-old mutt on for its members’ eating 
but before a month was over, president, vice-president, 
committee, treasurer, and secretary, were all elected, a 
goodly list of members had enrolled themselves, a 
breed of sheep had been selected to experiment upon, 
and a fair-sized scrap of land on Dartmoor had been 
rented by the club. Then for a month or two the 
reports of the head grazier were read with an appetiz- 
ing interest, and the attendance of members fell off 
rapidly as it became clear to the least observant that 
a five-year-old sheep took at least five years to grow 
up in. Before six months had gone by since the date 
of its foundation the club had grown to be one of the 
dullest and most neglected of resorts. Nobody could 
talk even of five-year-old mutton for ever ; the 
association possessed no other interest, and very few of 
its members had any other theme in common. The call 
for the second annual subscription met with a 
languid response. Youth is popularly supposed to be 
the season of impatience, but youth at least has time 
for waiting. Some of the elderly contingent dropped 
away by the act of nature, and a good many others 
were doubtful of their own lives being long enough 
to bring them to the promised land of gourmandise. 
Some of the veterans were put upon water-gruel and 
the like poor diet by relentless medical advisers, and 
under these conditions found their interest in haunch 
and saddle fade rapidly away. In short, before a 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


3 


single joint of the club mutton had ever decorated 
the club-table the association itself had practically 
gone out of existence. 

There was the flock on Dartmoor, its venerable 
elders ripe within a month or two for the sacrificial knife 
— there was the head grazier sending up a quarterly 
report to be read by nobody, there was the scrap of 
moorland experimentally leased for one and twenty 
years, and there were the club premises rented for the 
same period. But there was practically no club. 

In these circumstances Captain Peter Heaton ap- 
peared upon the scene. He was a man of perspicacity 
and energy, and he had in one way or another a 
certain little capital at his command. He saw 
the potentialities of the club as a proprietary concern, 
and after due negotiation purchased its belongings 
and was free to use its name. His chief initial 
difficulty lay in finding somebody to deal with, 
but that being surmounted the way lay plain and 
easy before him. 

The taste for good mutton not being exclusively 
confined to the elderly members of the aristocracy, 
the worthy captain, with his stock-in-trade in hand, 
found no difficulty in getting about him a company of 
the younger sort. Excellent names, not quite so well 
known, so solid or respectable as the earlier, but excel- 
lent still, were found for the committee. But whether 
the new members were drawn towards Captain Peter 
Heaton by the process of natural selection or not it 
is certain that they were a curiously raffish and dis- 
orderly set of people. They kept abnormal hours, 
and drank fancifully named drinks from the afternoon 


4 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


beginning of their day until the morning close of it. 
They gambled heavily, and willingly paid to the club 
proprietor absurd sums forgambling tools andgambling 
time. There were plenty of young men of title among 
them, and here and there in their ranks an elderly peer 
who might have been supposed to know better than to 
waste his time in the pursuits and society of the Five- 
Year-Old Club. There were mashers from the Guards, 
the genuine, undoubted, and undoubtable thing, and 
imitation mashers from outside, whose social coin rang 
false to discerning ears. There were florid, vulgar 
turfites and sporting journalists, permanently stale with 
eleemosynary champagne. There were actors there 
who had walked from the drawing-room to the stage 
leaving their breeding midway. There were fledgling 
youths, innocently knowing in respect to wines, cigars, 
and horses, and more easily to be made a prey by 
flattered vanity than any village greenhorn in his 
ignorance. 

It would be a libel to say that there were not good 
fellows in this curious crowd. There were certain 
sturdy men of the world who dreamt of robbing 
nobody, and who would certainly have puzzled the 
astutest member of the gang to rob them. There were 
honest harumscarum good-hearted lads, who were 
learning the A B C of the world in that singular 
seminary, and paying more than they thought of for 
the tuition they received. 

Amongst these was one Harry Wynne, who was 
great-grandson to no less a person than the noble 
founder of the club. The Earl of Bridgebourne had got 
into the nineties by this time, and the t'ive-Year-Old 


I. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


5 


Club was about a dozen years of age. The earl had 
completely withdrawn himself from it years ago, 
and to his uninstructed fancy it was as respectable, as 
stately, and as dull as it had been in his own day. 
The old nobleman naturally went but little into the 
world, but he kept all his faculties sharp and clear, 
was extremely proud of the youthfulness of his aspect 
— he looked not a day over five hundred — and the un- 
certain activity of his venerable legs. He was a very 
stately old gentleman indeed, but the pride of youth 
carried him so far that on coming down to breakfast 
of a morning he would not disdain to execute a little 
dancing step or two before his familiars, displaying 
his youthful vigour and agility with a mirth which 
grinned the saddest memento mori. 

The earl was aware of his great-grandson's member- 
ship of the club, and at least on one occasion splen- 
didly congratulated him on the precocious good sense 
which led him to choose the society of his elders and 
his betters. The young man perfectly understood 
the position of affairs, but for his own sake refrained 
from laughter until he was out of the magnificent old 
gentleman's presence. 

Mr. Harry Wynne, whose fortunes this history pro- 
poses to follow, had barely achieved his majority. He 
stood six feet in his socks, and though at present a 
shade too thin for his heiglit, gave promiseof developing 
into a rather unusually handsome fellow. He wore his 
fair hair closely cropped, and had a little golden down 
upon his upper lip. He had a good, frank pair of grey 
eyes of his own, well set apart, was gifted by nature 
with high spirits, and a not inconsiderable share of 


6 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


mother wit, and was altogether a very favourable 
specimen of the British adolescent, so far as aspect and 
manners are concerned. He had no profession, and not 
a great deal of money, and he had been bred in a bad- 
dish school. Eton and Cambridge had between them 
succeeded in inoculating the boy with the notion that 
debt was the normal condition of a gentleman. With- 
out being in the faintest degree intentionally dishonest, 
he had learned that so long as a man nursed the intent 
to pay mere tradespeople their debts, the time of pay- 
ment stood for next to nothing. In fact, the villainous 
system of credit, as practised with young men of good 
families at our public schools and universities, had got 
into the lad’s bones. He had been in debt when he 
was eight years of age, and had lived on credit ever 
since, paying away his hypothecated little income 
cheerfully enough when it came to him, and walking 
daily deeper and deeper into the mire, in the serene 
certainty that there was sound land ahead of him. 

He got a thousand or two when he came of age, 
but it was mortgaged years ago, and he saw next to 
nothing of it. If he had only known it he had come 
long since to the end of his tether, but happily or un- 
happily the tether of youth is elastic, and young Wynne 
w’as disposed to stretch his to the utmost. If he had 
been in a hurry to go to the Mischief he could hardly 
have chosen a better starting point than the Five- 
Year-Old Club. Play began there every night pretty 
soon after dinner, was in full swing at midnight, and 
went on until all hours in the morning. At two 
o’clock the club was poetically supposed to close, 
and from players who desired to continue their game 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


7 


the proprietor exacted a fine of five pounds for the 
first hour, ten for the second, fifteen for the third, 
and so on. Captain Peter Heaton found this system 
work admirably, for the nightly fines alone gave him 
an annual income of some nine or ten thousand 
pounds. 

Whenever young Wynne got money he played, and, 
as a pretty regular thing, he lost, as anybody might 
have expected and predicted. In spite of his long 
apprenticeship to debt and the gay carelessness natural 
to youth, he began to tremble a little at his own pro- 
spects. There was nothing for it but to play higher, 
and he played higher and plunged deeper accordingly, 
until one melancholy wet autumn morning he walked 
home to his lodging in Duke Street, St. James’s, with 
an utterly bankrupt exchequer, and a gambling debt 
of three hundred and fifty pounds on his shoulders. 
He had to own to himself that things looked as bad as 
they well could look. His only hope of raising money 
was by play, and yet until he had paid play was for- 
bidden. He got wretchedly to sleep and won vast 
sums which profited him nothing on awaking. 

His great-uncle. Lord Hounes, the Earl of Bridge- 
bourne’s eldest son, was in town, and the boy made 
a despairing, useless call on him. Lord Hounes had 
borne his courtesy title for seven-and-sixty years, 
and had long since felt weary and ill-used under 
it. He had never entertained any great affection for 
the earl, and what little he had had been quenched 
this score of years by his father’s unheard of and 
selfish persistence in living. For his station he had 
been hard up all his life, and the old earl had always 


8 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


steadfastly refused to help him. His lordship 
lived in Eccleston Square, and having reached 
his door and rung the bell, the boy stood staring 
at the iron pine-apple at the corner of the area 
railings, knowing in his heart that he might as 
well present his petition to it as to his poor and 
parsimonious great-uncle. 

Lord Hounes gave him a sour lecture and a 
heap of antiquated advice, but beyond these declined 
to give him anything. The young man went away 
sorrowful, and carried his hopeless petition to his 
uncle. Colonel Percy Seaforth. 

Colonel Seaforth was a very different person from 
Lord Hounes, and the lad knew well enough 
that the one difficulty to be dreaded here was 
poverty rather than parsimony. Young Wynne was 
an orphan, and, his own limited resources once ex- 
hausted, had no help to look for anywhere in the 
world but at Uncle Percy’s hands. Uncle Percy had 
a younger brother’s income and his pay, and if out 
of this he allowed his nephew three hundred and 
fifty a year, he certainly did a good deal more than 
his cold duty by him. The boy knew that well 
enough, and felt an added weight of shame as he 
thought of his uncle’s unfailing generosity. 

The colonel was at home, and heard his story 
through with a sorrowful patience, tugging at his 
grey moustache as he listened. 

“Well, Harry, my lad,” he said, by way of answer, 
“you seem to be in a very considerable scrape, 
and you have nobody but yourself to thank for it. 
You are my only sister’s only son, and I have done 


l] he fell a^mong thieves. 9 

what I could for you for your mother’s sake. It 
does not beconje me to talk about it, but I have 
done a little more than my duty, and if I say that 
I can’t do any more, it is simply because I can’t, 
and not because I won’t. The allowance will go on, 
but I can’t give you that before quarter-day, 
because I sha’n’t have it at the bank till then.” 

Colonel Seaforth was a bit of a Don Quixote 
to look at, a tired and melancholy gentleman who 
had been overlooked in his profession, and had been 
saddened, though not soured, by ill fortune. He had 
a kindly heart, as he had constantly ' proved to 
his nephew, and if the young scapegrace had found 
courage to tell him everything, he would have 
made an effort to assist him. But the lad, as lads 
in trouble will, had disguised half his difficulties, 
and without meaning to be dishonest, had put al- 
together too favourable a complexion on the general 
aspect of affairs. 

He went away unhelped, and wandered home, 
and from here, after a wretched hour or two, wan- 
dered, out of sheer vacuity, to the club. The class 
of men who used the Five-Year-Old in the daytime 
and the class of men who made it their haunt by 
night had certain widely-marked differences between 
them. The daylight contingent was eminently 
respectable. Its talk was of horses to be sure, but 
they talked horse with as much seriousness as 
men of business talk of notes of exchange or poli- 
ticians of the events of the session. They were 
racing gentlemen — owners of stables and the like, 
and followed the pleasure of their life with perfect 


lO 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP, 


sobriety and discretion. The names of many of 
them were known and respected on every racecourse 
in the kingdom, and they enjoyed a fame which 
within its limits was as complete as that of Prince 
Bismarck or Mr. Gladstone. Outside the strange 
world which lives by and for horses they might be 
unknown, but within it they were potentates and 
powers. 

Captain Peter Heaton, the club proprietor, was 
as much at home with the one set as the other. 
An affable smiling man of a trifle over the middle 
height and a trifle over middle age, iron-grey about 
the whiskers, perfectly polished in manner, and in 
full command of face and temper. He was as keen 
as a razor and shaved as closely, as a score or two 
of people who had learned him well could tell 
you. 

The gallant captain was seated in his customary 
armchair in the club smoking-room, reading the 
day's racing quotations, and solacing himself with an 
excellent cigar and a glass of fine old Bourbon 
judiciously tempered with appollinaris water. Young 
Wynne dropped into a seat beside him, and hodded 
rather gloomily in answer to the captain's cheerful 
and cordial salutation. Heaton, from behind his 
newspaper, cast a glance at the lad and diagnosed 
his symptoms instantly. There was a buzz of 
conversation going on in the room, and when the 
captain dropped his newspaper and edged with a 
friendly, confidential manner towards the broken 
young gentleman there was no danger of their 
speech being overheard. 


I.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. ii 

‘‘ You were pretty hard hit last night, weren’t 
you?” the captain asked. His manner was sym- 
pathetic, and the boy was ready to be sympathized 
with. Sympathy was likely to do him little good, 
and yet he felt he needed it. 

“ I was, by Jove,” he answered. He did his 
courageous best to look as if it did not matter, 
but he knew the attempt was a failure. 

“ Well, you know,” said Captain Heaton, with the 
air of a man of the world, ‘‘ you really should not 
play. I don’t say you are a bad hand at ^carte 
for your years, but it goes without saying that you 
are no match for a man like Hump or Lanky.” 

It was one of the delightful peculiarities of the 
Five-Year-Old that almost everybody in it was 
decorated with some absurd nickname or other. 
An ill-tempered critic might be disposed to say 
that no man who priced his self-respect very high 
would accept a ridiculous title for himself or assist in 
conferring it upon another. But perhaps self-respect 
was not the strong point of the members of the 
Five-Year-Old, and certainly they were no great 
sticklers for dignity. They were mostly jaded men, 
and had a certain palled sense of humour, and if 
they vented it in that way, they possibly amused 
themselves and each other, and outsiders got no 
harm by it. 

The gentleman known as Hump was Mr. Herbert 
Whale, once a city “ financier,” and now a bookmaker. 
He was Captain Peter Heaton’s jackal, and did his 
dirty work for him. He had the social polish of a 
pot-boy, played an excellent amateur game at 


12 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


billiards, a more than excellent amateur game at 
ecarte, was an average good pigeon shot, and a fair 
bruiser. He was generally regarded as a hard-fisted, 
honest fellow, and it was known that if he did 
a friendly service, he wanted a hundred per cent, 
for it. If the security were shaky he would go as 
fa^ as two hundred per cent, to oblige you, and he 
had command of apparently unlimited sums for 
investment. 

Lanky was Captain Charles Bolder, a person 
related to one of the noblest families in the kingdom, 
and a gentleman against whose character nothing 
had ever been established. He had held a commis- 
sion in the Blues, and knew every fast man and 
fast woman in town. He knew a prodigious number 
of people outside those dubious circles, and was 
as much at home in the monde as in the demi- 
monde. He was a very useful man in getting an 
aristocratic list of stewards for semi-theatrical balls, 
or for finding respectable names for the committees 
of sporting clubs. His luck at cards was known to 
be peculiar, and nobody turned up the king at ^cart6 
or the nine at baccarat so often as he. If anybody 
else had imitated him in these achievements it would 
have been remarked upon. 

‘‘Why shouldn’t I be a match for either of them 
asked the benighted youth, in answer to the captain’s 
statement. “A man can’t play against luck, but 
if I held such cards as Lanky had last night, don’t 
you think I could have beaten him ? Of course I 
could.” 

“ My dear boy,” said the captain, “ luck levels 


l] he fell among thieves. 13 

itself, and everybody gets his slice of it if he can 
stay long enough. But it’s knowing what to do with 
it when you’ve got it.” 

‘‘Let me have a slice of it,” said Mr. Wynne, 
not boastfully, but with a resigned despair, “and 
I’ll show you what I’ll do with it.” He lowered his 
voice and leaned closer to the captain. “ Upon my 
soul,” he said, “ I’m very horribly cornered, Heaton. 
I don’t a bit know what to do.” 

“ Don’t talk about it here,” the captain re- 
sponded ; “drop into my room and I’ll join you there 
directly.” 

A gleam of hope shot into the lad’s mind, and he 
looked at Heaton gratefully. 

He rose from his place and lounged guardedly 
out of the room, and a minute later he and the 
captain were closeted together. 

“ How much is it, Wynne ? ” 

“ It’s three hundred and fifty.” 

“ Did you drop all that last night ? ” 

“Yes, and a couple of ponies ready beside.” 

“ Whom do you owe it to i ” He knew all 
about it already. 

“ To tell you the truth,” said young Wynne shame- 
facedly, “ I borrowed the chips from the cashier. 
I gave him my word of honour that I would pay 
him to-morrow.” 

“Begad,” said the captain, “that’s worse than I 
thought. That’s very rough indeed, Wynne. You’ve 
been to your own people ? ” 

“ I went to old Hounes this morning, but he’s 
as stingy as he knows how to be. He won’t part 


14 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


with a cent. IVe just come away from Colonel 
Seaforth’s. He's as good as the bank, poor old 
chap, if he'd got it, but I've had a lot out of him 
already, and he told me plain and straight that he 
couldn't do it. It's no use going to Bridgebourne. 
I know I'm down for something there, but if I told 
him how I stood he wouldn't leave me a shilling." 

In naming his relatives he was not altogether 
without a hope that they might have some little 
influence upon the captain's mind, but the captain 
only whistled dolefully at the conclusion of his 
recital, and lifted his eyebrows with an air which 
seemed to say that the thing was practically done 
with. 

‘‘ Do you think you could help me, Heaton ? " 
the lad asked desperately “ Do you ? There's a 
good fellow ! " 

‘‘ My dear boy," said Heaton, ‘ if I could I 
wouldn't. I’m a poor man, as you know " — 
the intending borrower knew nothing of the sort, 
and shrewdly suspected the contrary — “and besides 
that I've been compelled to make a vow never to 
lend money in the club. I lose my members and 
I lose my friends. You see I'm candid with you, 
but it makes no difference. If I wished it ever so 
much I couldn't do it. And I've been horribly hard 
hit myself lately. But" — his countenance was as 
suddenly irradiated by this inspiration as if he had 
not led up to it from the beginning — “why don't 
you go to Hump ? He does a little in that way 
I know. He may make you pay for it, for he's 
a bit hard-fisted, but he's a good sort at bottom, 


I.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 1$ 

and if you can show him anything for it IVe no 
doubt he'll do it.” 

Any port in a storm. The boy hailed in his 
heart, this promise of deliverance and crowded on 
all sail to reach it. The friendly Hump was at that 
moment in the club, and being sent for appeared 
without delay. Captain Heaton left the pigeon 
and the rook together, and in half an hour the 
business was arranged. At the end of the negotia- 
tions Mr. Herbert Whale had parted with his 
cheque for four hundred pounds, and had undertaken 
to send to the borrower's house fifty pounds worth 
of champagne of a brand as yet unknown, which 
was guaranteed to beat anything in the market 
when once it got there, and a half case of cigars, 
also priced at fifty pounds, and of a quality in 
both senses unheard of. In return for this young 
Wynne had accepted a bill at three months for 
eight hundred and fifty pounds. Hump had been 
merciful, and had charged him less than four hundred 
per cent, per annum 


CHAPTER IL 


When Master Harry found time to think about 
things he began to see that the helpful Hump 
had been less generous than he had at the first 
blush appeared. That the champagne turned out to 
be utterly abominable, and that the cigars were worth 
something like a quarter of their professed value, 
may have helped the process of enlightenment. Even 
without their aid he could see that to pay eight 
hundred and fifty pounds for a loan of five hundred 
for three months was to buy a temporary relief 
rather dearly. He found that to fill one hole he had 
dug a larger, and being in the main a reasonable 
young fellow, he took the matter seriously to heart 
and cast about in his own mind and in the world at 
large for means whereby he might amend at once his 
ways and his financial position. 

He had a little surface classical learning and a 
pretty knack of turning verses. He had actually 
been already in print, and readers of one of the 
society journals knew to whom to attribute certain 


CHAP. II.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


17 


elegant lines addressed to Inthia, and signed H. W. 
He had a sort of vague notion that literature was 
one of the ways to wealth, an idea which says some- 
thing for the sanguine turn of his mind and for his 
inexperience. 

He was on fairly intimate terms with the editor 
of the journal in question, and before his financial 
arrangement with Mr. Whale was a week old he 
called at the editorial office with a little bundle of 
manuscript which he had selected from the trifles 
of the last half a dozen years. The editor glanced 
at them, and tossed them lightly about with an 
apparent sense of their value which was strongly 
out of proportion with the author*s. This one 
would do perhaps, and perhaps this other ; as for the 
rest — well, he would look them over. He might 
find a corner for them. The budding litterateur 
suggested payment, said something in a vague and 
general way about the necessity of buckling to at 
one thing or another, and expressed his resolu- 
tion to abide by the belles-lettres, for which 
he was modestly convinced that he had a native 
aptitude. 

In effect he and the editor did come to actual 
terms, and the young gentleman found himself 
engaged on approbation to produce prose and 
verse on society topics, and to supply paragraphs 
from his own personal knowledge of society 
people at a rate of remuneration which might 
rise to five pounds per week or sink to three. 
Obviously there was no Eldorado here, but for all 
that it was better than nothing, and Harry felt 

C 


l8 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [CHAP. 

a glow of conscious rectitude as he emerged upon 
the street. 

He cut the club almost entirely, and he slaved away 
at his verses, his piquant little society paragraphs, 
and his occasional small type articles, under the 
natural and excusable impression that he was 
bringing about something like a new era in letters, 
and had at least set his foot on the first rung of 
the golden ladder. 

When this had been going on for about a month 
he encountered Captain Peter Heaton, who hailed 
him cordially and dropped the friendliest possible 
little reminder about Hump’s bill. Captain Heaton 
was sorry to tell the young fellow that Hump had 
been very hard hit, and would be certain to want 
his money up to time. This was a new awakener, 
for Harry had allowed himself to hope almost 
with certainty that the bill could be renewed, 
and had indeed staved off in fancy its final pay- 
ment to some indefinite distant period when money 
would be comparatively a matter of indifference 
to him. 

Being thus enforced to look still more widely 
afield for ways and means, he called to mind a 
certain C. W. Fergusson, a contractor in a great 
way of business, and a member of Parliament whom 
he had met at the house of Lord Hounes. This 
Fergusson was a Scotchman — a man of energy and 
probity, who had one foible. He wanted to associate 
with people of fashion, and would have given 
anything for a baronetcy. Young Wynne mixed 
with the best people in England, and when he 


II.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


19 


came seeking employment in Fergusson’s office he 
I got it without demur, and with it a salary of two 
hundred pounds a year, which was at least a hundred 
more than he was worth to begin with. All the 
ways opened themselves to the young man, but none 
I of them led to immediate fortune. He could command 
now an income of seven hundred pounds a year, 
and if he lived like an anchorite and worked like 
a nigger he could hope to pay off Hump’s bill in 
about a year and a half. He went on trusting to 
the chapter of accidents, and was warmly applauded 
by elderly friends and relatives, who knew nothing 
of the motive which pushed him to such promising 
efforts. 

Sometimes, when the weight of the Hump slipped 
for a moment from his shoulders, he felt wonderfully 
happy and virtuous. He had plenty of capacities, 
and had such stores of health and spirits that no 
amount of work seemed to overtire him. The 
more he did the better he grew to like it, and he 
quite wondered that he had ever thought himself 
at ease in the old idle, vacuous days. 

Whilst this new tide of energy and resolve was 
running he began to think with greater seriousness 
than ever about the virtues and personal perfec- 
tions of Miss Inthia Grey. He had known Miss 
Grey from her childhood, and even in the days of 
the Eton jacket and collar had regarded her with 
thoughts of worship. There had been of course 
an interregnum in his passion, but when the 
brutal period of adolescence, at which all girls are 
despicable in a boy’s eyes^ was over, he had come 

c 2 


20 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


back to the original shrine and had performed secret 
rites of adoration there. It was she who had prompted 
his muse and had given life to the verses signed 
H. W. in the society journal to which he was now a 
recognized contributor. In the boyish efflorescence of 
his heart he made a great matter of this, and told him- 
self that love had found the way to fame and fortune. 

The harder he worked the more he thought of 
Inthia, and the more he thought of Inthia the more 
he was inspired to labour. 

Of course nobody is expected to share a lover’s 
raptures about his mistress, but making all allow- 
ances for loverlike exaggeration, Inthia Grey remains 
a very charming and beautiful girl. She had 
at this period of her life a complexion of remark- 
able purity and brilliance, a colour so rich and fine 
that it would alone have made her noticeable 
amongst a crowd of young girls of her age. In 
addition to this she had the softest, shyest, most 
speaking and amiable eyes, a figure full of delicate 
grace and vivacity, and a very jewel of a heart. 
She was not quite eighteen, but Lady McCorquo- 
dale, who was supposed to know her as well as any- 
body, was wont to say that she had, under all 
her airs of quiet submission, a character of unusual 
firmness and tenacity. 

Lady McCorquodale was the eldest and only sur- 
viving daughter of the Earl of Bridgebourne. Her 
ladyship had united herself early in life to a young 
Scottish clergyman whom the family influence had 
brought to the dignity of lawn-sleeves and a 
seat in the House of Peers. Miss Grey was a niece 


II.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


21 


of the late bishop, and her ladyship, who had no 
children, had adopted the girl in her very earliest 
childhood as her own. 

The whole family had been aware of Master 
Harry's infatuation for Lady McCorquodale's 
beautiful little ward, and when they were no more 
than children together had thought his devotion 
and her acceptance of it a very pretty sight to witness, 
as no doubt it was. As the young people grew up 
towards manhood and womanhood the case had 
begun to assume a graver air. There had been 
one or two informal family councils, at which the 
position of affairs had been discussed. It was admitted 
that if anything should come of the evident prefer- 
ence the young people showed for each other the 
advantages were all on Inthia's side.. Lady McCor- 
quodale made no secret of the fact that she meant 
to leave her money to the girl. The late bishop 
had been a saving man, and outside the publicly- 
announced benefactions enforced by his position 
had spent next to nothing of his income. Inthia 
would be well-to-do, and Harry, except for the 
limited fortune his Uncle Percy would leave him, 
would have nothing. It would be a brilliant match 
for the boy therefore, and by no means a brilliant 
match for the girl. Still the whole thing was in the 
family, and there was no objection made by the 
responsible people on either side. 

As the time approached for the payment of the 
bill Harry discovered that he could by no means 
hope to provide more than a hundred pounds 
towards meeting it, but he made himself fairly easy 


22 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


about it after the manner of youth, under the belief 
that the holder would renew. He hardly went near 
the club, but he had casual meetings with his old 
friends of the Five-Year-Old, and learned to his 
great rejoicing that Hump had been in extraordinary 
vein of late, and had been raking in money by 
the handful. He had no particular affection for 
Hump, and only rejoiced in that personage’s good 
luck because it seemed likely to be serviceable to 
himself. He thought that a creditor with his pockets 
full of money would be pleasanter to deal with than 
one whose pockets were empty — which again may 
be accepted as a proof of the young man’s ignorance 
of the world. 

But when the day of settling approached, and 
Harry Wynne met Mr. Whale by appointment 
he encountered an unexpected blow in the first 
sentence that was spoken. 

“ I was afraid,” said Whale, who was a mourn- 
fully confidential man with a high falsetto voice and 
a habit of boring an interlocutor into corners, “ I was 
afraid that you weren’t going to turn up, and I’m 
so rotten poor that upon my word I don’t know 
where to look for a fiver.” 

This staggered the debtor for a moment. 

‘‘ I am horribly sorry to hear it, old fellow, 
but ” 

“ For heaven’s sake,” said the plaintive Whale, 
‘‘don’t tell me you’re not going to do it. I’ve 
got nine hundred to find to-morrow, and I don’t 
know more than the man in the moon where to 
look for the other fifty.” 


IL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


23 


“I thought you’d been winning all over the 
shop,” young Wynne answered feebly. “ I haven’t 
been about the club much lately, but when I have 
met any of the fellows I’ve heard of nothing but 
your luck.” 

You haven’t heard much of my luck,” piped Whale, 
‘‘for this last three weeks, or if you have I haven’t 
I’m stone-broke, my boy, and that’s all about it. 
I’ve got to pay Hoskins of Cork Street nine hundred 
to-morrow, and if you can’t meet the bill I must 
hand it over to him to-morrow. You know what 
sort of a fellow ke is.” 

Harry was perfectly ignorant of the reputation 
enjoyed by Mr. Hoskins, but there was so serious 
a foreboding in Mr. Whale’s tone that his heart 
quailed at him, 

“ What can he do } ” he asked. 

“Do.^” said Whale, in his anguished falsetto; 
“he can’t do much. He can only run us both into 
the bankruptcy court, and that means ruin — to me, 
anyhow. I don’t know how your people might 
take it.” 

At this point, with an aspect of resigned despair, 
he sipped at a brandy and soda, bit off the end 
of a cigar with a sudden malicious spiteful jerkiness, 
and having apparently forgotten to light it, plunged 
himself moodily into an arm-chair, and did his 
best to look wretched and disconsolate. 

The pigeon had no need to assume any of the 
airs the rook was acting. He felt quite overwhelmed 
by this unexpected turn of affairs. 

“Look here. Hump,” he said in hopeless apology, 


24 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


“ IVe got a hundred, and if you can stave the thing 
off for another three months yoy’re welcome to it 
Fm awfully sorry, old man,” he added, with unneces- 
sary contrition. “ If I had thought I was putting 
you into a hole I would never have borrowed the 
money. Tm earning money now, and I shall earn 
more as I go on, and if I could only have a year 
or two to turn round in I could pay it all without 
bothering anybody.” 

“ My dear boy,” Whale responded, with a voice 
and air of profound wretchedness, “if they'd only 
give me a month Fm as safe as the bank. But 
old Hoskins is worse than a Jew ; he'll have his 
pound of flesh to-morrow, and he'll take it off* 
both of us, and that's all about it.” 

This was a sufficiently unpleasant prospect, and 
Harry sat in silence to contemplate it. He glanced 
now and again at Whale, who preserved throughout 
a very creditable assumption of despair. Nothing 
was said between them for perhaps five minutes, 
when the rook suddenly leaned over and laid a hand 
upon his companion's shoulder. The youngster, 
looking up seemed to read a gleam of hope in his 
eyes. 

“ Fve got an idea, my boy. I think we can work 
it. Your credit's pretty good, isn't it ^ You don't owe 
much.?” 

“ I don't owe a hundred, outside this,” young 
Wynne answered. “ I paid off two or three thousand 
nine months ago, and Fve been going pretty steady 
since.” 

“Then we can do it,” cried Whale, slapping him 


II.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 25 

on the shoulder with a beaming smile. ‘‘Butter- 
field will do it for. us.” 

“ Butterfield ? ” 

“Yes, Butterfield. Conduit Street. Jeweller.” 

“ What will he do ? ” 

“ He'll let a fellow in your position have a brace- 
let or two, or something of that sort. You needn't 
tell him what you want 'em for. He'll simply think 
it's for some girl or other. Attenborough will do 
the rest.” 

As before, any port in a storm ; but this particular 
entrance looked perilous, and the mariner was afraid 
of it for a while. 

“Butterfield won't bother you for a couple of 
years,” and at that assurance all sense of danger 
vanished. “ You'll have to get seventeen or eighteen 
hundred pounds' worth,” and at that the victim 
winced a little. “ It won't make any difference, my 
boy. You can pay interest on it at your uncle's 
until you redeem it, and then Butterfield will 
take it back again, and only charge you a com- 
mission for it.” 

“ He doesn't know anything about me,” said 
Wynne. 

“Oh yes, he does, my boy. You trust Butterfield. 
Your name's in Debrett — that's good enough for him.” 

Master Wynne jumped into a cab, and drove 
straight to the jeweller's. Mr. Butterfield was the 
pink of courtesy, and apparently had no suspicion 
in his nature. He held a pair of white hands up 
to his chin and smoothed them one over the other 
with a constant caressing motion, expressive of a 


26 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


fluttered deference. Mr. Butterfield had never before 
had the extreme honour of dealing with a member 
of the Bridgebourne family. He was delighted to 
secure Mr. Wynne’s custom, and trusted so to satisfy 
him by their first transaction, as to secure his 
constant patronage, and, he hoped, the patronage 
of the family. What did Mr. Wynne desire ? A 
bracelet ? Or a riviere, or both ? The moment was 
curiously opportune. He had just that moment 
received from his principal workman a perfect 
little object of art. It could be worn as a bracelet, 
as a brooch, as an ornament for the hair, or as a 
centrepiece for the riviere which accompanied it 
The stones were Brazilian, and of the purest water 
— not the rubbish nowadays imported from the 
Cape. Mr. Butterfield produced the glittering little 
object in its morocco case with a lining of sapphire- 
coloured velvet and white satin. Mr. Wynne could 
observe its extreme neatness, its — its chastity. The 
price of this charming little object was, it turned out, 
phenomenal for cheapness. It was only two thou- 
sand three hundred pounds, and Mr. Butterfield 
declared with fervour that no other jeweller in 
the West End was in a position to offer such an 
article for less than three thousand. 

Mr. Wynne, nervously caressing his incipient 
moustache, thought it would serve his purpose 
admirably. Mr. Butterfield rubbed his hands the 
more at this, and with a confidential certainty into 
which a little air of the most refined and respectful 
jocularity was allowed to creep, ventured to think 
that the lady would approve of it 


IL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


27 


An hour later the trinket was in the hands of 
Mr. Attenborough, and the dreaded bill was in ashes 
in the fire-grate of Harry Wynne’s chambers. 

Still an hour later Captain Peter Heaton and 
Mr. Herbert Whale sat in Mr. Butterfield’s private 
room over a glass of singularly fine old Madeira, 
and amicably arranged the share which should fall 
to each of them when Mr. Wynne’s family should 
have been compelled to pay for his purchase. 


CHAPTER III. 


It was two o’clock on the Saturday preceding 
the Christmas week, and Mr. Fergusson, who was 
already gloved, great-coated, and ready to depart, 
had sent a message to Mr. Wynne, requesting a 
moment’s interview. 

“ I never had a gentleman under my orders until 
now,” said the great contractor, “and when I first 
engaged ye, Mr. Wynne, I confess that I had a 
certain misgiving in regard to the enterprise. I’ve 
sent for ye to tell ye that I’m very much pleased 
indeed with your assiduity and your business in- 
telligence. The hill of commercial prosperity, Mr. 
Wynne, is difficult to climb, and no man can do it 
by spurts. I’m a pretty quick obsairver, and I’m 
inclined to think that ye have the root of the matter 
in ye. I sent for ye on purpose to tell ye of my 
satisfaction, and as a sign of it ye’ll find your 
salary raised next year to the extent of twelve 
pounds ten per quarter. Now to a young gentle- 
man of your up-bringing that sum may appear very 


CHAP. III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


29 


insignificant, but you may regard it as the first 
indication of successful merit. I wish ye a merry 
Christmas, Mr. Wynne, and a happy new year.” 

The increase in itself was not magnificent, but it 
was an earnest of future things, and the kind words 
which went with it warmed the young fellow’s heart. 
He climbed on to a westward omnibus, and took 
a certain hardy pride in facing the weather in that 
economic fashion. He had a fortnight’s holiday be- 
fore him, and gave idleness the first welcome he had 
ever offered it in his life, having learned its sweets 
from labour. All his journalistic work was ready 
beforehand, and his portmanteaux were already 
packed for a visit to Lady McCorquodale’s house at 
Norwood, where he would encounter the divine and 
perfect Inthia. He had come to that loverlike 
stage by this time in which a young man discovers 
that he is absolutely unworthy of the regard of the 
girl he cares for, and when his knowledge of her affec- 
tion fills him with a profound humility and disposes 
him to high resolve. The routine of the office was 
glorified by the thought of her, and when he lashed 
vice or exalted virtue in his weekly article or his 
prettily turned verses, Inthia was always with him, 
and the thought of her, to his own mind, inspired 
him to an excellence he could never have achieved 
without her. 

Romance is not of much use to a young man of 
limited income, unless it lead him amongst other 
things to the study of figures. It had led him in 
that direction, and he had drawn up a creditably 
business-like balance-sheet by means of which he 


30 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


saw himself and the world no more than a thou- 
sand pounds at variance. He would pay interest 
on the jewels until such time as he could redeem 
them, and would then be able to return them to 
Mr. Butterfield at a sacrifice of perhaps a couple 
of hundred pounds. His income was increasing — he 
had withdrawn his expenditure to the narrowest 
limits ; he was working for love's sake, and felt as 
if there were no end to energy or success, and in 
two years at the least he would be clear. He felt 
mightily experienced at this time, and realized, as he 
thought, quite clearly, the price he had paid for his 
whistle. He had had his lesson, so he told himself, 
and had paid for it, and sometimes, though he was 
not often of a devotional turn, he thanked provi- 
dence devoutly for having opened his eyes so early. 
He was young, and the world lay before him to 
conquer and subdue. There was not a lad in London 
whose heart beat to a more honestly exultant tune 
than his that grimy afternoon. 

The hansom was already at the door to carry him 
and his belongings to Victoria, and he was actually 
upon the threshold when the postman brought him 
a letter which completed his beatitude. It came 
from the editor of a popular magazine, announced 
that the article he had sent in a week or two before 
was accepted, and contained the welcome intelli- 
gence that it would be paid for. There are writers 
who receive more than the half-guinea a page offered 
for Harry Wynne's first contribution to the maga- 
zines, but they are veterans or specialists, and no 
more get flushed with joy over their earnings than 


III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 31 

a provision dealer over the profits on the sale of 
bacon. The budding author felt his cheeks flush 
and his eye kindle as he read. He was lord of 
himself and of the world. 

With this happy exaltation scarcely subdued he 
reached his journey's end. Lady McCorquodale 
actually came into the entrance-hall to receive him, 
an act of cordiality and condescension that imposing 
and stately woman had never before permitted 
herself. Lady McCorquodale was of majestic 
proportions, and strictly clerical in her dress and 
demeanour, as befitted the relict of a bishop. The 
sainted doctor had had a severe time of it in his 
day, and her ladyship had ruled him by the power 
of the house of Bridgebourne as with a rod of 
iron. He had been a man of comparatively humble 
extraction, and had never overgrown the Scottish 
pragmatical humility which had distinguished him 
in his earlier days. A kind of wonder sat tipon the 
good man’s soul to find himself the son-in-law of a 
peer, and legislating under the same gilded roof 
with him for the benefit of common people. Lady 
McCorquodale had taken good care of that amaze- 
ment, and had always kept it alive and flourishing. 
Now that the good doctor had escaped her rule 
he had grown to be a king and a saint among men 
in her remembrance. His portrait decorated almost 
every apartment in the house, smiling with a sour, 
thin logical look from the family canvas, the photo- 
graphic paper, and in the servants’ bed-rooms from 
the framed front pages of illustrated evangelical 
weeklies, where the impress of the Sainted coun- 


32 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [CHAP. 

tenance was dinted by the uneven type of the hidden 
page. 

Lady McCorquodale was ten years younger than 
her brother Lord Hounes, and was therefore at this 
time fifty-seven years of age. She carried the muscle 
of the family, and at one time had had some pre- 
tensions to beauty, though these had long since worn 
away. She always wore her widow’s weeds, and 
what with a natively imperious temperament and 
a long life of government, had developed a gait 
and bearing like those of a permanently indignant 
queen. When she was gracious she was all the more 
agreeable by contrast, but her amiabilities were rare, 
and her servants in especial lived in dread of her 
chill and dignified asperities. 

Whilst her ladyship was greeting her great- 
nephew in the hall an apparition presented itself 
upon the staircase and drew his eyes and attention 
that way. Inthia stood smiling at him from the 
stairway, looking sweetly pretty in a plain dress of 
Scotch gray tweed. She advanced after a pause 
of a second or two, and gave him her hand with 
a pretty blush. The boy’s eyes looked adoration 
at her, and as the little warm hand nestled in his 
own for a mere instant he thrilled all over, and was 
ready to slay dragons. Even her stern ladyship 
smiled, well pleased at their meeting, and indeed the 
person would have been hard to please who would 
not have looked on the young pair with satisfaction. 
The lad,, with his close-cropped gold head, brave 
forehead, and, candid eyes, and his tall slim figure 
with its promise of manly strength, and the girl, 


III.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


33 


mignonne and graceful, with her steadfast look and 
changeful colour, made a charming picture. 

The two young people said little, but they looked 
a great deal, and when Harry had superintended the 
unpacking of his belongings he sought the drawing- 
room, and charmed all ears by a modest recital of 
his successes. Lady McCorquodale was proud of 
him, but was not overmuch disposed to show it. 

“ In my time,'' she said, with dignity, gentlemen 
were not supposed to enter into commerce or 
letters or that kind of thing. But in these demo- 
cratic days things are different. We cannot change 
the times, and I suppose we must go with them 
like other people. I trust that I shall always speak 
of papa with the respect which befits his position 
and his age, but if I occupied his place I would take 
care that my descendants, at least during my life- 
time, were not obliged to derogate from their own 
proper place in the world." 

Inthia was of a different opinion, and for this 
three months past had accustomed herself to think 
nobly of commerce. As for her lover's turn for 
verses, shecompared it to Winthrop Mackworth Praed's, 
which was more than the general public did, and 
even thought it if anything a little superior. He was, 
altogether a hero in her eyes, and that he should 
scorn delight and live laborious days made him of 
course more noble than ever. She glowed over the 
editor who had accepted the young gentleman's 
first magazine article, and thought him the most 
discerning of men. 

The dinner and the evening passed as dinners 

D 


34 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

and evenings usually pass. The next day was 
lovely. There had been a fall of snow during the 
night. The wind blew keen and bracing from the 
north, and the sun shone brightly with a reddish 
tinge, as if his face were blown into light and colour 
by that exhilarating air. The young lovers walked 
to church together, leaving her ladyship to drive 
thither with the late bishop’s sister, Mrs. Brotherick, 
and that lady’s daughters, the Misses Arabella and 
Julia. 

Perhaps the whole of their contemplations were 
not directed towards the service, and perhaps 
even the periods of the rosy-cheeked curate, delight- 
fully intoned as they were, failed to enlist their com- 
plete attention. Pleasanter than the rosy-cheeked 
curate’s periods to the ears of the whole congrega- 
tion Inthia’s voice sounded in the musical service 
of the morning. And if the whole congregation 
found those fresh, clear, and natural notes pleasant 
to listen to, it may be taken for granted that lier 
lover found them at least as agreeable as any other 
listener. The girl had no more thought of singing 
for show than the robin-redbreast who, excited by 
the music within the building, perched himself 
on a tombstone outside and carolled in the intervals 
of the service ; but simply and quietly as she sang, 
the notes were- so pure and true that they made 
their way through the general clamour of choir and 
congregation with as little effort as a beam of light 
shows when it throws a shaft across the darkness. 
Harry looked at her and thought of Saint Cecilia 
and of Reynolds’s lovely picture of Miss Linley, 


III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 35 

to which indeed she bore some resemblance. If it 
is heathen in a young gentleman of two or three 
and twenty to kneel in spirit at love's shrine in 
a Christian church, it is to be feared that there are 
many cultured young heathens in the world, and 
perhaps after all a young man may be worse occu- 
pied even in church than in making honest and 
manly vows to himself in behalf of the tender and 
delicate creature whom he means, if he can, to 
marry. This was certainly Harry's chief spiritual 
employment for the time being, and by the time the 
service was over he was in as proper a state of self- 
abasement and good resolve as if every one of 
the rosy curate's moral shafts had found a target 
in his bosom. 

Lady McCorquodale sailed majestically down the 
aisle when the service was over, followed in a 
meeker reflected glory by Mrs. Brotherick and the 
Misses Arabella and Julia. Harry and his sweet- 
heart lingered behind a little, to give them time to 
drive away. The slide of the box in which the 
pew library was kept was opportunely obstinate, 
and would not close until they had stooped over 
it for quite a long time, with heads and hands 
in near neighbourhood. The beneficent obstacle 
yielded when it had served its turn, and the young 
people were free to walk home together alone and 
undisturbed. The curate, who at the bottom of 
his heart had no love for the practice of oratory, 
had be^n merciful to himself, and had preached as 
short a sermon as he dared, so that the lovers had 
a clear three-quarters of an hour to luncheon, and 

D 2 


36 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP. 


could walk by a circuitous and countrified route 
that fine morning. 

They had not much to say to each other, and 
the few sentences they spoke were uttered by fits 
and starts. The pretty little girl in her furs and 
the tall lad in his ulster looked peculiarly demuie, 
and to the unintelligent eye gave no sign of their 
inward condition. In their hearts they were per- 
fectly certain of each other, and yet they were 
full of those tender, plaguing, and delightful 
doubts with which love is familiar. They were 
sorely in want of a neutral theme to talk about, 
and by and by they found one. A remarkably 
Christmassy old gentleman, with trimmed mutton- 
chop whiskers of a snowy whiteness, a face of 
florid red with good living, stout health, and winter 
weather, and a figure and attire strongly reminis- 
cent of the John Bull of Mr. Tenniel, was in the act 
of bowing to an old lady who paused at the door 
of her house to respond to his courtesy. The old 
gentleman’s bow was perfectly polite, but had yet 
a tinge of friendly respectful waggery and burlesque 
in it, as if in the amiable exuberance of his heart 
he rather overdid it. He had just re-covered his 
shining old head with his broad-brimmed old- 
fashioned hat, when he turned, and, catching sight 
of Inthia, bowed again. 

“ Good morning, my dear,” said the old gentleman, 
with a chuckle in his voice. “ You sang charmingly 
in church this morning. It is a great treat to hear 
a fine voice in devotional music. I had a voice 
myself once on a time, but that was long ago.” 


III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 37 

Harry supposed naturally that this hearty old 
personage was known to his companion, and stood 
smilingly to listen to his compliments. The old 
gentleman, quite sans g^ne, took from Inthia’s hands 
the book she carried, and fluttered over the pages 
of Hymns Ancient and Modern until he found 
a certain page, when, with a stout, gloved fore- 
finger following the notes, he began to hum the 
tune they indicated in a quaint, quavering old 
tenor, which had yet a husky mellowness in it. 

‘‘Fine tune. Old Boston,” said the old gentleman. 
“ Many fine tunes here, and I am sure, my dear, 
that you sing them all delightfully. I wish it were 
my privilege to hear you. Good morning, my dear, 
and forgive an old gentleman for complimenting 
you.” 

With that the old gentleman gave another sweeping 
bow with the old-fashioned hat, and walked away 
radiant, having returned the book to Inthia's hand 
still open at the page to which he had referred. 

“ Who is he ? ” Harry asked, when he had gone out 
of hearing. 

“ I don’t know him,” Inthia responded, her dark 
eyes dancing with fun, “but he is a very delightful 
old gentleman.” 

They laughed happily together, and walked on 
with their late uneasiness banished from their 
minds. 

“He’s an excellent critic,” said Harry. “We m-ust 
allow him that much, at least. What does he call 
the tune he was humming ? ” 

He bent his head to look at the page, and Inthia 


38 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


held it open before him in her two little gloved 
hands. They were quite alone upon the road, for 
they had naturally chosen the least frequented way 
and Harry essayed, in imitation of the vanished 
eccentric, to hum the tune before him. He sang 
like a raven, and horribly out of time. 

‘‘ No, no,’' said Inthia, “ this is how it goes," and 
she hummed it slowly, following the notes with her 
finger as the old gentleman had done a minute 
or two earlier. “ Look," she said ; “ where the note 
stands higher than the one before it the voice rises. 
That is not a very profound lesson in music, but 
it is true." 

She hummed the air once more, pensively and 
softly, still tracing the notes with her fore finger. 
The little nail was clearly defined beneath the glove, 
and the boy traced its outline with the absurdest 
delightful emotion. He bent down closer and closer, 
doubtless moved by a desire to master the intricacies 
of the tune. There was nobody in sight, and the 
friendly solitude of the fields was all about them. 
There were high hedges on either side, their bare 
curves festooned with snow, and glittering in the 
sunlight like fairy silver. It was uncomfortable 
to look sideways, and he dropped a half pace be- 
hind, so that from his superior height he could look 
easily over her shoulder. She, to give him a clear 
view, inclined her head a little to the right, and so 
gave him a glimpse of her rosy white neck, with a 
stray tiny curl or two enhancing its fairness by con- 
trast. The young gentleman forgot the tune, so slight 
a thing will divert the youthful mind from study, 


III.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


39 


but the girl went on pensively humming it. Then, 
whether it were the delightful finger that still followed 
the notes, or the pretty round neck with the black ring- 
lets curling upon it, or the tune of Old Boston, so 
sweetly murmured, or all these together, the young 
man's arm went suddenly but softly round the 
girl’s waist, and the grave, quiet music stopped 
in the middle. Their feet stood still together on 
the snow-covered road, and the boy stole his left 
hand round her until it reached her left shoulder. 
Then he drew her gently round, and stooped, to 
look into her drooping face. 

“ Inthia, my darling ! My dear, dear Inthia.” 

And that, so far as we have a right to inquire, 
was the whole of the business. 

The winter day had been radiant enough be- 
fore, but the fresh, bright wind might have blown 
as balmy as in the summer time, and they have 
known no difference. The glorious winter sunlight 
dazzled on the fields, and lit every spray of the 
hedges and every stark wayside weed with a sort of 
splendour. They walked in fairyland. We have all 
been there at one time or another, but no man, or 
woman either, finds an abiding city there. The 
moments we spent in that enchanted region were 
brief, but how sweet they were memory knows. 

The young people were late for luncheon, and to 
be late for anything in which she herself was con- 
cerned was as a rule among the unforgivable sins 
in Lady McCorquodale’s eyes. But for once she 
was disposed to be gracious, and the wonderfully 
bright, glad countenances of the culprits may have 


40 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CI-IAP. 


had something to do with the softening of her 
ladyship’s martinet disposition. The presence of a 
visitor would alone have restrained her from any 
overt expression of insulted majesty, and as it 
happened a visitor was present. 

Mr. Humphrey Frost was the head of one of the 
oldest untitled families in Great Britain, and vas 
as solidly proud of being a commoner as he tould 
have been if his forebears had been decorated with 
every title royalty can bestow. The Bridgebournes 
were of an old house, but the roots of the Frost 
family tree went deep into English soil, and the 
first bearers of the name of whom history held re- 
cord were solid franklins in Saxon England genera- 
tions before the rough-and-tumble bands of the 
Bastard’s adventurers found fortunes and titles there. 
Mr. Frost was not only of a very ancient family, 
but he was, as the representatives of ancient families 
sometimes are not, prodigiously wealthy. The rail- 
way had made towns of his broad fields, and in 
doing so had made him a millionaire twice or thrice 
over. He was not a handsome man, and for his 
thirty years looked a trifle grizzled and old-fashioned, 
but he had a thoroughly English bonhomie — which 
by the way is so thoroughly an English quality that 
there ought to be an English word for it — a smile 
that illuminated his plain face like sunshine, and a 
character of sterling, cheerful honesty. In manner 
he was at once polished and hearty, and there was 
hardly a man of his time more universally respected. 
He was a politician, for sheer fault of opportunity 
to be something more useful, a sound adviser and 


III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 41 

fair debater, though not brilliant, or likely, apart 
from wealth and personal influence, to be of 
striking use to his party. 

In the eyes of the maternal population of these 
islands Humphrey Frost shone with an almost sacred 
lustre. There were one or two better possible 
matches for marriageable daughters, but only one or 
two. And then Mr. Frost’s character was unimpeach- 
able, which was more than could be said for all his 
compeers. He had kept no occult establishment by 
the side of silver Thames, maintained no stud 
and owned no sporting colours. He had always 
been cheerfully serious, and without being the least 
little bit of a milksop had led a life curiously pure 
and free from blame for an unoccupied man who 
had had the handling of vast sums of money from 
his youth upwards. In short he was a gentleman 
of as old a fashion as his name and family, honour- 
able, chaste, and high minded, a standing un- 
conscious reproach to half his compeers. 

Mr. Frost had long been the hope and despair of 
the best families with marriageable daughters on 
hand, that by this time almost everybody had 
decided upon him as being intractable, and a born 
old bachelor. The net had been spread in sight 
of the bird so often that he had grown exception- 
ally wary, even for so old a stager as himself. 
Of all the wiles and stratagems which are held 
lawful and honourable in the outer courts of 
Hymen there was probably not one which had not 
at some time or other been employed upon him, 
but he had never been entangled by so much as a 


42 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

feather. The world of matrons desperately resigned 
itself to let him alone. 

Mr. Frost and Lady McCorquodale were friends 
of long standing, and Mr. Frost's father had been 
an early patron of the lamented bishop's, having 
presented him with his first living, so that there was 
a tie of friendship between the two houses. Out- 
side the magnificent segis of Lady McCorquodale 
Mrs. Brotherick was socially an inconsiderable 
person, and she knew nothing, except at second and 
third hand, of Frost's impregnability to matrimonial 
assault. Her motherly bosom fluttered when she 
learned that he was in the house, and had actually 
consented to stay to luncheon. Was it — gracious 
powers! — was it Julia, or was it Arabella whose 
charms had brought the super-eligible young man 
hither } She was tremulously courteous to him, 
and did kotow before him as if she had been an 
ambassador and he a heathen potentate. Arabella 
and Julia fluttered their pretty plumage, and with 
a fine sisterly abnegation each helped the other 
tp the display of her particular charms and virtues. 
Such an innocent, unsuspecting, dear little nest of 
marriageable maiden purity they showed that the 
eligible parti, whose sense of humour in this' regard 
had been cultivated to the finest, smiled inwardly^ 
and had some trouble not to smile outwardly. 

The lovers took the ambrosia and nectar of that 
feast in a charmed silence, and Lady McCorquo- 
dale had most of the talking. She disapproved of 
the rosy curate's doctrinal laxity, and triumphantly 
crushed him in the theological mill bequeathed to 


III.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 43 

her by the late bishop, proving triumphantly by 
extracts from his published discourses the curate s 
fallacies. 

Mr. Frost took this as he took most things, 
with a serene good humour, and being alone with 
her ladyship for a moment after luncheon, he 
startled that excellent woman amazingly by 
asking for an immediate private interview. 
Her ladyship at once accorded his request, and 
left Mrs. Brotherick and the girls to wonder. A 
strange conflict of doubt and fear raged in those 
tender bosoms. Lady McCorquodale was the 
recognized and undeniable head of their house. 
Was it etiquette that an intending suitor should 
apply to her rather than to mamma ? Mrs. 
Brotherick humbly knew herself to be far removed 
from the exalted circles in which Lady McCorquo- 
dale had her habitual being. She was ignorant of 
these nuances, and could only wait in agitated 
suspense. 

Humphrey Frost went straight to his point, as 
was the way with him. 

“ Tell me. Lady McCorquodale,'' he said, “ if I am 
right in supposing that Miss Grey is free to accept 
an offer of maiiiage.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


Her ladyship was hit all abroad by this question. 
She confessed afterwards in narrating the interview 
that she had never been so amazed in her life before 
— so transcendently surprised, were her ladyships 
own words. Her amazement was so little guarded 
that she permitted Frost to see it, but she recovered 
herself, and offered him a counter question. 

‘‘May I ask, Mr. Frost, why you put that question 
to me ? 

“ I wish to make Miss Grey my wife,” said Mr. 
PTost, with straightforward simplicity. 

Lady McCorquodale had been perfectly sure 
beforehand that this would be at least the gist of his 
answer, and yet when it came it seemed almost to 
take her breath away. 

“ I was quite unprepared for this,” she said gravely? 
collecting herself. “ You do Inthia a very high honour, 
but I am really afraid that you come too late.” 

“ I hope not,” said Frost. He was very solid and 
purposeful in his manner, and at Lady McCorquodale's 


CHAP. IV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


45 


hint of failure his colour changed slightly, but not 
so slightly that her ladyship failed to observe it. It 
gave her a proof of his sincerity in the matter, and 
she saw at once that his feelings were really engaged. 
She took an immediate championship of his cause, 
even in the self-same instant in which it exasperated 
her to think that it was probably hopeless. To think 
that a woman of her perspicacity had allowed herself 
to look on at that silly calf-courtship of Harry 
Wynne’s, whilst such a chance as this was ready to 
present itself! She knew Humphrey Frost well 
enough to be sure that he had thought long and 
seriously before speaking, and she had been so blind 
that she had guessed absolutely nothing. 

The proposal gave Inthia a new value in her eyes. 
In her own stately, condescending fashion she had 
admired the girl, but Mr. Frost’s approval set such a 
cachet of distinction upon her that an unwilling 
admiration was extorted in the old lady’s mind. It 
placed Inthia in another air to think that she might 
be to-morrow the enemy of every marriageable girl 
in England. 

“Humphrey,” .she,, said, falling back into the 
familiarity of twenty years back, “ I will do what I 
can. I had never thought it possible — I had never so 
much as dreamed of you coming for her. Between 
ourselves you and I need have no disguises about one 
thing. There is not a girl in England whose parents 
would not jump at you. Your money and your family 
entitle you to that, and you have an excellent 
character. It is so self-evident that it seems absurd 
to say it, but if I had had to choose a husband for 


46 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Inthia I should have chosen you. But you must 
know that the whole family has allowed the thing to 
go on so long, and Inthia has grown so accustomed to 
regard it as being settled.’’ 

‘‘Let me understand you, Lady McCorquodale,” 
said Frost, with a disturbed and puzzled look. “ Miss 
Grey has no suitor i ” 

“ Indeed she has,” responded her ladyship, in an 
almost querulous tone ; “ she has been as good as 
engaged all her lifetime to Harry Wynne.” 

Mr. Frost smiled, and looked at her ladyship. She, 
in answer to the smile, shook her head in a sort of 
vigorous despondency, and Frost became immediately 
serious. 

“Young Wynne,” he urged, “is barelyoutof histeens.” 

“ He is turned two and twenty,” responded her 
ladyship, “and really there is no denying that they 
are devotedly attached to each other. We have 
made a sort of family pastime of it. It has been a 
pretty little sort of pastoral comedy, going on under 
our noses, and we have all permitted it and petted it 
and encouraged it until I am afraid that it is past 
changing.” 

“ They are devotedly attached to each other ? ” sa d 
Frost, who had heard nothing beyond that statement. 
“That should be enough for a man, I suppose.” He 
was bitterly and evidently disappointed, and his 
simple and quiet manner emphasized that fact to 
Lady McCorquodale’s understanding. “ It certainly 
should be enough for me,” he pursued, “ if Mr. 
Wynne and Miss Grey were a little oldel*. I think 
Mr. Wynne has no especial prospects ?” 


IV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


47 


‘‘ His uncle Percy allows him three hundred a year/* 
her ladyship answered, “and he is engaged with 
Mr. Fergusson in the city, and between that and his 
verses and magazine articles he seems to make four 
or five hundred more.” 

Humphrey Frost looked at that statement thought- 
fully, and for the moment quite unselfishly. To a 
man of his wealth the provision looked beggarly. 

“Can you think,” he asked, “of throwing away a girl 
like Miss Grey upon a prospect of that kind } ” He was 
afraid a second later of seeming unworthy of himself. 
“ I beg you to understand me, Lady McCorquodale. 
I quite feel the difficulties of the position, and I would 
not for the world do anything which should even seem 
to force your ward s inclination. I know that you are 
so far superior to any sordid consideration in the 
matter, that I could not enlist you on that side even 
if I were disposed to try, but this has made itself a 
serious question with me, and I wish you to under- 
stand that I am very much in earnest. I am willing to 
wait, and I will ask you to do no more than this — lay 
my proposal before Miss Grey. Let Mr. Wynne 
know that it has been made, and let Miss Grey 
herself at the expiration of half a year be the sole 
arbitress.” 

“ It is quite possible,” said her ladyship, with a quiet 
desperation in her voice which indicated that she 
thought it quite sufficiently impossible. “ It is quite 
possible that Harry may have self-denial and pride, 
and even affection enough for Inthia to retire. It is 
of course possible also that Inthia may see the 
advantages which your proposal offers. But they 


48 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

are a romantic young pair, Humphrey, and they have 
been so encouraged and spoiled.^' 

Her ladyship broke off short once more, and was a 
good deal surprised to find within her elderly heart a 
sentiment she had not suspected there. Intensely as 
she desired the match between Humphrey and 
Inthia, there was a secret ambushed hope, which was 
really too foolish to be recognised, that the girl would 
not ' permit herself to be tempted from her earlier 
allegiance. Just that little touch of romance lingered 
in Lady McCorquodale’s stately bosom, only of course 
to be remorselessly smothered. 

‘‘You may perhaps do me one favour. Lady 
McCorquodale,’' said Frost, after a lengthy pause. 

“ I will do whatever I can, my dear Humphrey,” 
her ladyship answered, all the more eagerly because 
of the traitorous womanly touch of romance in her 
own heart. 

“ It would be a relief to me if you could lay my 
proposal before Miss Grey this afternoon. Let her 
know, if you please, all that I desire for the present, 
and let me know in what manner she receives it. If 
she should desire a longer period than six months, or 
indeed should make any conditions, I accede to them 
beforehand. Of course,” he added, with a valiant smile, 
“ Miss Grey will understand that I shall not be in any 
way a trouble to her.” 

Her ladyship and he arose together, and she laying 
a hand upon his shoulder looked into his face. 

“ You care very much about this, Humphrey } ” 

“ My dear lady,” he answered, smiling and blushing 
at the same time, “ I care about it very much indeed. * 


IV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


49 


I will see what I can do,” she said, and so left him 
and went in search of Inthia. 

That little foolish compunction was in her breast 
again, and had to be sternly quenched. But her 
ladyship knew very well that she would have 
another sort of respect for the wife of poor Harry 
Wynne than she would have for the brilliant mistress 
of Humphrey Frost’s half-dozen castles and mansions. 
She would have to be angry with the girl’s roman- 
ticism if she clung to the poorer man, but at bottom she 
would have to love and admire her for it. So in a 
very compound of feelings, none of which her majestic 
countenance and person suffered to appear, she made 
for the conservatory, where she knew she was likeliest 
to find Inthia. Where Inthia was Harry Wynne was 
pretty sure to be, and the girl never evinced in his 
absence that marked partiality for the conservatory 
she displayed at the time of his visits. 

They were there sure enough, but at a rather 
suspicious distance from each other, warned perhaps 
by Lady McCorquodale’s stiff rustling silks and her 
hardly sylph-like footsteps. 

“Harry,” she said, breaking ground at once, “will 
you leave us for half an hour } I have something to 
say to Inthia.” 

A strange gloom settled at once on the boy’s heart, 
a premonition of trouble, associated with no fact or 
person, but not less genuine on that account. He with- 
drew at once, of course, and without question, and 
taking his hat went out of doors, and paced moodily 
up and down the clean-swept drive, with his hands in 
his pockets, and his hat tilted forward on to the bridge of 

E 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


his nose. Humphrey Frost, who was doing his four 
miles an hour on the carpet, cast a chance look out of 
window and beheld his rival. A touch of momentary 
shame laid a finger on him. He was using his wealth 
and position to oust a poor lover, but after all the poor 
lover was no more than a boy, and he had the common 
sense of the situation on his side as well as his own 
passion. What helped him most to shake off shame's 
clinging finger was the thought of Inthia holding her 
poor state somewhere in the district of Bloomsbury, 
buried in a half decent, struggling poverty. He 
pitied the romantic dream he came to disturb. He 
had, as perhaps few men in his place would have had, 
a genuine feeling for it, but he himself was in love, and 
with mingled egotism and good reason he told himself 
that at his age love had a much more radical root than 
it has in the heart of two and twenty. Boys change 
and forget, and, said Humphrey Frost to himself — 

“ I have enough to last me my lifetime." 

‘‘ Inthia, dear," said Lady McCorquodale, “ I have 
something to say to you." 

Inthia slid an arm about the elderly lady's waist, and 
laid her tender cheek against that formidable bosom. 

“ I have something to say to you, auntie," she 
answered. 

“ I have the greatest news * for you," Lady 
McCorquodale responded. 

“You cannot have such news for me as I have for 
you," said Inthia. “Let me tell mine first." 

“ Very well, my dear," said the old lady, with a 
rather sickly cold sinking of the heart. 

She divined the news already, and it made her task 


IV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 51 

so difficult that for all her ordinary strength and 
resolution she felt quite helpless. 

Inthia put the other arm about the old lady’s waist, 
and clasped both hands behind her, bending her head 
so as to hide her eyes, which see knew to be sleepily 
heavy with the hot blush that mantled on her face. 
She pressed her cheek closer to the black silk bosom, 
and told her story in half a dozen words. 

“ Harry proposed to me this morning.” 

Oh, luckless coincidence ! That the most brilliant 
offer in the world should come at such a time. 

“ And you } ” said Lady McCorquodale, tremulously. 
‘‘ What did you say, dear } ” 

Inthia looked up sweetly and shyly for a mere 
second, kissed her swiftly, and then hid her own face 
again. 

“ I said ‘ Yes,’ dear.” 

Lady McCorquodale gave a heart-breaking sigh. 
After all, what else on earth could have been expected ? 
The young people had been absolutely thrown at each 
other from their childhood upward. The whole 
family, open-eyed, had seen what was coming and 
at last it was here. And one of the worst things 
about it was that there was nobody to blame. Not a 
creature was in fault from start to finish, and yet the 
condition of things was to her ladyship’s mind almost 
cataclysmal. 

“ My darling,” she said, and she found herself so 
agitated that she spoke with difficulty, “ if you had 
brought me this news yesterday I should have 
rejoiced to hear it, and have thought it the most 
fitting and proper thing to happen in the world.” 

E 2 


52 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Inthia had unlocked her hands, and now clasping 
them before her own bosom, looked at her ladyship 
with a startled and even terrified air. 

“ There is nothing to be afraid of, my child. Nothing 
terrible has happened. On the contrary, there has 
just been offered to you one of the most brilliant 
positions in the world. Mr. Frost has laid before you 
a proposal for your hand.” 

“ Mr. Frost ! ” Inthia repeated. 

‘‘ Mr. Frost,” said the old lady, ‘‘ and you must 
know, my dear, that though we have always looked 
with the greatest kindness upon Harry, that if we had 
as much as dreamt of this splendid offer we should 
never have encouraged his advances for a moment. 
Now, Inthia, there is nothing to be afraid of, and above 
all I beseech you not to make a scene. There is 
nothing I hate like a scene.” 

The girl’s face had gone dangerously pale, and her 
eyes were wide with fear. Her ladyship was un- 
naturally petulant at the provoking condition of affairs> 
but Inthia’s look touched her, and brought her back 
to a moderate and persuasive tone. 

‘‘Nothing will be done,” she said, “ that is not fully 
and freely of your own doing. Harry will be told of 
the proposal which has been made, and will I trust 
have the good sense and right feeling to retire. I 
think Harry a very manly young fellow, my dear, and 
I cannot for a moment believe that he will be so 
selfish as to stand between you and such a prospect. 
Mr. Frost, to whom I have hinted the position of 
affairs, is willing to wait for half a year for your 
decision, but I can tell you, Inthia, I have known 


IV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


53 


Humphrey Frost all his life and there is no better 
young man in England. I can see that he loves you 
very dearly. He is a gentleman, and he will never 
give you any trouble. I shall not ask you for a 
decisive answer now, of course, but I shall ask for 
your serious promise to think it over. I am getting 
to be an old woman now, and whatever little worldly 
feeling I may have had has, I trust, long since left 
me. But I should be blind if I did not see the 
immense advantages on Mr. Frost's side, and I should 
certainly be grossly wanting in duty if I did not do 
my best to impress them upon you." 

This harangue had given Inthia time to collect 
herself. 

“ I shall be sorry to disappoint you, auntie dear," 
she answered, “ but I shall never marry anybody but 
Harry now.” 

“Inthia!” exclaimed her ladyship, “I will not 
accept an answer of that kind at this moment. It is 
not what I ask for or desire. What I wish you to do 
is to consider Mr. Frost’s proposal, and to prepare 
yourself to give him an answer in half a year’s 
time.” 

“If Mr. Frost cares at all,” said Inthia blushing, 
“ it will be far better and kinder to tell him now. I 
esteem Mr. Frost very highly, and I think that his 
wife will be a very fortunate wornan, but — ” 

The pretty face was sweetly obdurate, and as she 
looked at it her ladyship’s hopes sank to zero. 

“ I shall tell Harry,” she said, “and expect him to 
resign his pretensions.” 

“ Auntie dear,” the girl answered, with sudden tears 


54 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES.* [chap. iv. 


in her eyes, “ you have been everything to me. Don't 
let us be angry with each other, and suffer for nothing. 
If Harry is to be told of this I shall tell him of my 
answer.” 

“ Inthia ! ” said the old lady, " you are an ungrateful, 
disobedient child.” 

Then there were tears, not on one side merely, 
and then a reconciliation, and new beseechings on 
her ladyship’s side, but no change on Inthia’s. 

“You come too late, Humphrey,” said her ladyship, 
when at length she found courage to face the un- 
fortunate suitor. “ That dreadful boy has proposed 
this very morning, and Inthia has accepted him.” 

“ She declines to take my proposal into 
consideration ? ” 

His face had grown as white as Inthia’s had been 
half an hour before, but his voice was calm and 
steady. 

“She declares, my dear Humphrey, that nothing 
will change her.” 

“Tell her, if you please,” said Humphrey Frost, 
“ that nothing will change me either. My offer holds 
good for my lifetime.” 


CHAPTER V. 


Lady McCorquodale's ideas with respect to 
Harry Wynne underwent a rapid and most logical 
change. Her ladyship had lost no time in informing 
the young gentleman of the offer Mr. Frost had 
made, and she did not suffer him to remain for a 
moment in doubt as to her conception of what 
ought to be his sense of duty. His plain and obvious 
course, so Lady McCorquodale told him, was to 
retire at once from the field, and leave Inthia free to 
accept that magnificent offer. It was not unnatural, 
perhaps, that the young man should have quite 
another notion about his duty. There was a hot 
scene between them, and there were things said on 
both sides of which, in their cooler moments, neither 
of the disputants approved. Harry denounced her 
ladyship to her face as a wicked old woman, and the 
phrase made her dislike him cordially for the rest 
of her days. It was not the epithet “ wicked ” which 
affected her so seriously, but the stinging and only 
too veracious one which followed it. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


56 


‘Tf Inthia tells me to go I will go/’ Harry had 
said ; but I will accept my dismissal from no hand 
but hers. What right have you to try to play fast 
and loose with her affections ? Do you think Inthia 
doesn’t care for me } ” There were scalding tears 
in his eyes as he spoke, for her ladyship had shown 
clearly that she meant to be bitterly uncompromising, 
and his whole heart was aflame against the sordid 
mammon worship she had preached to him. “ Do 
you think I don’t care for Inthia ? Haven’t we 
been thrown together from the time when we were 
babies ? Haven’t we been taught to think always 
that we should marry one another } Do you think 
that Inthia is a white slave, to be sold in the 
market to the highest bidder ? ” 

He choked with wrath and shame, and a lad’s 
honest sense of championing the cause of the girl 
he loved and of his own heart. Of course there was 
some egotism in it all, but it was natural and just, 
and at least he was so firmly rooted in his own 
sense of right that the accusing verdict of the world 
could not have changed him. 

Her ladyship knew to the full as well as he 
how right he was, but being set upon her purpose, 
and having only a much smaller right on her side 
she felt it all the more necessary to be angry. She 
told him that he was acting a selfish and despicable 
part in trying to bar Inthia’s way to so splendid 
a fortune. He went pale at this, and stood up 
quite quietly. 

“If her own heart does not stand in her way, 
Lady McCorquodale,” he said, “ I beg to assure 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


57 


you that I won't. Shall I ring and ask for 
Inthia ? " 

This was an altogether triumphant stroke, and 
so routed her ladyship that there was nothing left for 
her but to march from the apartment with as fine a 
show of contempt and indignation as she could assume. 

The young man so suddenly grown dreadful to 
her ladyship's eyes was actually in the house with 
Inthia, and could not be got rid of at a moment’s 
notice. And, apart from that, her ladyship knew 
well enough that the first hint of persecution would 
strengthen the young people, and make her own 
task more difficult. It does not matter in the least 
what the Church may be — the blood of the martyrs 
is its seed. To make life difficult to these young 
people was to make her own cause impossible. So 
the inevitable interview between Inthia and Harry 
came about that afternoon, and the two young 
creatures clung together for safety in the midst 
of the first storm which had ever shaken their 
souls. They cried together, and the stalwart boy 
held the little girl to his breast, and swore inwardly 
that he would face a thousand deaths rather than be 
parted from her. Neither of them dreamt in their 
ignorance of thanking Humphrey Frost for setting 
this exquisite intoxicating cup of happy sorrow to 
their lips. He had opened their eyes and they 
were innocently ungrateful. They had never known 
until then how much they had loved each other, but 
as each clung to the other in a superb abandon- 
ment to loyalty they forgot to bless their benefactor. 

The honest Humphrey could have chosen no better 


58 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

way of bringing happiness to the heart of the girl 
he loved. There was a poignancy of delight in sail- 
ing through these tempestuous seas which is never 
known to love in fair weather. 

To everybody but the two lovers the Christmas 
season was a grim and arctic time in the house of 
Lady McCorquodale, and the beauty of the thing 
was that whilst Harry and Inthia conceived them- 
selves to be profoundly unhappy and ill used, they 
were tasting such sweetness as is only once in a life- 
time presented to mortal lips. The Misses Arabella 
and Julia looked on the girl with a wonder the purity 
of which was occasionally alloyed with a faint tinge 
of contempt. Their excellent mother pointed the 
moral and adorned the tale for the edification of 
their hearts and minds. Thus, the good lady would 
say, were the brightest prospects clouded. Such a 
cankerworm could a romantic folly lay in the rose 
of social hope. The young ladies listened to the 
maternal vaticinations in an ecstasy of faith. Would 
that such a chance had fallen to .either of them! 
The unselfish Arabella would have yielded it to Julia 
if only for the sake of the invitations. Inthia was 
surely mad, or at the most charitable construc- 
tion was posing as Constancy for a time whilst she 
kept an eye on the main chance. There are sides 
of feminine human nature which the smaller kind 
of philosopher finds a ghastly joy in studying. The 
best lover of the sex chooses to blind himself, and 
is certainly none the unhappier. A true study of 
the meaner qualities of women would eclipse the 
gaiety of nations. 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


59 


Those icy holidays came to an end, and Harry 
Wynne went back to the world's business. He might 
have carried the brand of Cain upon his brow, and 
have been scarcely more avoided by her ladyship. 
After the one unescapable shindy the majestic woman 
^displayed for him a contemptuous pity and amaze- 
ment which was hard to bear. She and Mrs. 
Brotherick used to ask each other if ever such 
assurance were seen before such as the young man 
displayed in staying his appointed time. The unruly 
young villain ! Why would he not lie down before 
the wheels of Juggernaut and have life and light and 
hope and love crushed out of him respectably and in 
decent quiet } If ever to the eyes of two elderly 
ladies a young man's plain duty stared him in the 
face it did so in the case of Harry Wynne. He 
had nothing to do in the world but to go away 
and be quiet. If he did so it was as evident as 
anything could be that in a little time Inthia 
would yield to Humphrey Frost's advances. They 
meant the girl no harm. They meant the boy no 
harm. They believed themselves utterly wise and 
unselfish. 

They were not disposed to rest without allies, 
since the most powerful were to be had for the 
mere asking. Lady McCorquodale made a purposed 
visit to Bridgebourne Court, and there had an 
interview with the head of the family, before whom 
she laid the case. The old earl, who had never 
been guilty of more sentiment than mere youthful 
heat of blood gave warrant for, accepted at once 
the common sense view of the case. The boy's posi- 


6o 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP. 


tion was ridiculous and indefensible, and he must 
be made to feel it. Humphrey Frost was a most 
excellent match for Inthia. The best conceivable 
match for her. The venerable nobleman so fumed 
and fretted at the idiotcy of these young people 
that he gave himself a headache. The idea of their 
supposing that their crude and infantile sentimental 
emotions were to be allowed to govern life ! His 
lordship would as soon have thought of arrest- 
ing a special train because a butterfly had hap- 
pened to alight on the rail, as of altering the 
economies of life for the sake of their romantic 
notions. 

Lord Hounes shared his father’s opinions, and 
even went a little beyond them. He had that ex- 
cellent reason for disliking his young relative which is 
already known to the reader. The young reprobate 
had tried to borrow money, and nothing but success 
in that rather hopeless enterprise could have made 
the offence more unpardonable. His lordship had 
never been troubled by sentiment. He had married 
for money, and if his bride’s wealthy father had 
failed in cotton, and the promised million had never 
reached him, the misfortune at least was traceable 
to no fault of his own. He had always been virtu- 
ously conscious of the best intentions. He admitted 
that he had at one time been in favour of the 
match, “ but,” said his lordship, with that original 
sagacity which distinguished him, “ circumstances 
alter cases.” 

His lordship’s only son, Charles Scaforth, who 
would one day in the course of nature become Earl 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


6i 


of Bridgebourne, was also admitted to the family- 
councils, and also took the commonsense view of 
the case. 

“ The little girrs a little fool, and the boy ought 
to know better,” was his verdict. 

Thus fortified in her opinion, her ladyship went 
home to Norwood, and actually opened operations 
with some vigour, writing a long letter to Harry, in 
which she expounded the family conviction, and 
enveloping Inthia's life in so cold and comfortless 
an environment that the girl became profoundly 
unhappy — really and genuinely unhappy this time 
in her sweetheart’s absence. 

A curious and unexpected result arose from all 
this. Captain Peter Heaton, standing at the window 
of his chambers on the first floor of a house in 
St. James’s Street one fine March afternoon, be- 
held the pinched and careworn face of Lord Hounes, 
and immediately afterwards recognized in the totter- 
ing old figure at that nobleman’s side the Earl of 
Bridgebourne. The venerable earl and his son 
were on their way from Arthur’s to White’s, and the 
less aged nobleman supported the more elderly with 
that marked air of deference and filial piety which 
he always bore towards him in public. Whilst Captain 
Peter Heaton with no particular interest watched 
the pair past the smoke of his cigar Harry 
Wynne came striding swiftly round the Piccadilly 
corner, and catching sight of his relatives approached 
them, and holding out one hand in salutation, raised 
his hat with the other. To the captain’s amazement, 
the two elders of the house turned a chilly stare upon 


62 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


their relative and mounted the steps of the club, 
leaving him planted hat in hand, and looking after 
them for a moment with an expression of complete 
confusion and bewilderment. Captain Heaton 
whistled long and low, and kept an eye upon the 
young man until he moved away. The cut was 
public and open ; a score of people had seen it, and 
all glances followed the young man thus snubbed 
in vivid curiosity and conjecture 

Captain Heaton took his hat, gloves, and walking 
cane, and went out in search of information. He 
found several people who were prepared to tell him 
all about it, and a good deal more, but their stories 
differed, and he had to piece the probable facts 
of the case together as best he could. In effect, 
he concluded that Harry Wynne desired to make 
a disastrous marriage, and was so set upon that 
foolish course that the family had determined pro- 
visionally to abandon him. I 

A messenger dispatched in a cab to Hump's 
residential chambers brought that gentleman to 
Mr. Butterfield's private room in Conduit Street. 
Captain Heaton and Mr. Butterfield were there 
already. Captain Heaton stated the case in the 
concisest terms, and it was unanimously decided 
that it was necessary at once to exercise so much 
pressure as would enable them to discover the actual 
state of the family feeling. The family feeling was 
their only security for their joint and separate 
interests in two thousand three hundred pounds. 

To this end the three gentlemen were discreetly 
indiscreet. They allowed it to be known in quarters 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


63 


from which it was likely to reach the Bridgebourne 
ears that young Wynne was going the pace. He was 
probably, so the artful rumour ran, entangled with 
some expensive person of the other sex — here 
rumour touched the name of a burlesque actress or 
two whose characters were too well established to 
suffer by the scandal — and he was known to have 
run in debt to Butterfield of Conduit Street to 
the tune of three or four thousand pounds. 

Mrs. Brotherick was the first to hear this awful 
and rejoicing news. She was heart and soul with 
Lady McCorquodale and Mr. Humphrey Frost, 
and as she herself observed, she had the sacred 
feelings of a mother, and would have known her 
duty to her own child if Providence had blessed 
her humble deserts with such an offer. She took 
the story with a shuddering joy to her majestic re- 
lative and patroness. The dreadful abandoned boy 
had given himself into their righteous hands. He 
was wickedly pretending all this romance for Inthia 
whilst he gave himself over to the enticements of 
some shameless Delilah who wore tights in public, 
and had doubtless been the ruin of a score of 
wicked young men whose bones she kept in her 
cavern. 

“ This,” said her ladyship sternly, “ shall be inquired 
into without an hour's delay.” 

She rang the bell at once, and ordered the 
carriage. She attired herself in her costliest saoles, 
as if for a visit of state, and came down inflexible 
as fate, as disposed for war as Boadicea before the 
Romans. She drove straight to town, accompanied 


64 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


by Mrs. Brotherick. To the minds of both the 
ladies there was a spice of naughtiness about Mr. 
Butterfield’s shop and clientele which lent a zest 
of appetite to the adventure. Naughty creatures 
whom a bishop’s widow could only think of with 
indignant stately tremblings had set foot upon the 
waxed oak parquet of that sinful floor. The man who 
dealt with those people must himself be wicked, 
as he who drives fat oxen should himself be fat. 
In the space of an hour, filled in by who knows what 
of hope and indignation the carriage rolled splen- 
didly into Conduit Street, and pulled up before 
the jeweller’s door. Swift and smooth came an 
obsequious polished youth from the inwards of the 
establishment, and bowed the ladies in. 

Her ladyship presented her card, and the jeweller, 
with that saponaceous, soft, continued gesture of 
worship with w’hich he always stood at the shrine of 
the British aristocracy, bowed and smiled and rubbed 
his hands, and smiled and rubbed his hands and 
bowed. Not often had so terrible a figure as the 
defunct bishop’s lady presented, entered that neat 
and wealthy home of art 

Her ladyship desired to speak with Mr. Butterfield 
in private. Mr. Butterfield, urbanely w'orshipful, 
conducted his visitors to his private room, set out 
chairs for them, and stood before them to receive 
their orders, an embodiment of business courtesy. 

“ I have heard a dreadful story, Mr. Butterfield,” 
her ladyship began. It was not her custom to 
go beating about the bush at any time, and now 
she felt that if ever female did well to be angry she 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


V.] 


65 


was the woman. “I am told that Mr. Harry Wynne, 
my great-nephew, is terribly in your debt.” 

Mr. Butterfield rubbed his hands, and smiled with 
uplifted eyebrows. 

“ I really do not know,” he answered, “ how your 
ladyship became possessed of the information.” 

‘‘ It does not in the least matter how I became 
possessed of the information, sir,” her ladyship 
responded. “Be so good as to tell me if the informa- 
tion is exact.” 

Mr. Butterfield smiled and bowed and rubbed his 
hands, expressing in face and attitude the politest 
subserviency to her ladyship’s desires and the politest 
deprecation. 

“ Mr. Wynne, your ladyship, has certainly honoured 
me with his custom.” 

Her ladyship and Mrs. Brotherick exchanged a 
glance. The glance on the one side expressed a 
bitter triumph, and on the other was at least meant 
to express an agony of sympathy. 

“Tell me, if you please,” said her ladyship, “what 
he purchased from you, and to what extent he is 
indebted.” 

“Really, your ladyship,” Mr. Butterfield smiled 
with an air of complete discretion, 

“ Kindly answer my question, if you please,” said 
her ladyship imperiously. 

Mr. Butterfield still rubbed his hands, but assumed 
a look of pathetic unwillingness. 

“ If your ladyship insist ” 

Her ladyship did insist, and insisted with added 
imperiousness. 


66 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


“It is not customary,” said Mr. Butterfield; “it 
is very far from customary. Your ladyship must 
know that in transactions of this kind a certain 
discretion is expected from a tradesman. If it were 
known that I yielded to anything except the strongest 
family pressure in a matter of this kind it might affect 
my connection to an extent of thousands of pounds. 
I assure your ladyship — thousands of pounds.” 

Mr. Butterfield was a good comedian, and well 
in practice. Her ladyship took high credit for having 
forced him to show his books. The account ran : — 
“To one centre ornament, eighteen carat gold, to 
form brooch, centre of bracelet, centre of riviere, and 
ornament for the hair, with eighteen carat gold brace- 
let, brooch and ornament mounts, set in brilliants, and 
to one riviere of thirty-eight brilliant diamonds set in 
eighteen carat gold, in case complete ;^ 2 , 300 .” 

Her ladyship remarked in silence that Mr. Butter- 
field had with evident purpose omitted to set 
forth the weight and quality of the diamonds. She 
and Mrs. Brotherick leaned over the book together, 
with their shoulders in shuddering contact. Mrs. 
Brotherick mutely turned her eyes to heaven, 
clasped her hands, and rested in that attitude of 
invocation and astonishment for a full half-minute 
whilst her ladyship glanced from her to the accusing 
volume and back again. To both of them at that 
moment Harry seemed a sinner past redemption. 
They had visions of the wicked creature in tights, 
and their imaginations hovered round strange scenes 
of orgie, — vulgar, polluting, vague. 

“Are you aware, Mr. Butterfield,” her ladyship 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


67 


demanded, “that Mr. Wynne is utterly unable to 
pay for this mad, this extravagant, this sinful 
purchase ? 

Mr. Butterfield took care to be overwhelmed by 
this inquiry, but kept self-possession enough to 
murmur his trust that Mr. Wynne’s family would not 
allow him to be a loser by his confidence in the 
young gentleman’s representations. 

“ His family, I can assure you, sir,” her ladyship 
responded, “will not be answerable for one farthing 
of debt incurred for such a purpose.” 

When the ladies had withdrawn Mr. Butterfield 
seemed more cheerful than might have been expected 
of a tradesman who had just learned of so severe 
a loss. He despatched a note to Captain Heaton, 
informing him of the event of the afternoon, and 
concluding with the statement that in his opinion 
now was the time to put the screw on. Mr. Butter- 
field did a rather extensive and peculiar business. 
He had already twice disposed of the jewellery he had 
sold to Harry Wynne, and having in each case 
parted with it to a wealthy and inexperienced young 
gentleman, and in each case repurchased it from the 
Delilah to whom the wealthy and inexperienced 
young gentleman had presented it, he now felt him- 
self on velvet. His terms for selling and his terms 
for buying were naturally very different, and he had 
the satisfaction of knowing that whatever came out 
of the latest transaction came as pure profit. The 
wealthy and inexperienced young gentlemen who had 
already owned the ornaments were, like their suc- 
cessor, proteges of the good Captain Heaton, whose 

F 2 


68 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap 

introduction to expensive tradesmen was often at 
the service of the gilded youth, his friends. 

Lady McCorquodale and Mrs. Brotherick drove 
straight to Eccleston Square, and were set down at 
the house of Lord Hounes. His lordship was at 
home, and received her ladyship without a moment’s 
delay. The horrible story was told, with inter- 
jectory denunciations and uplifting of the hands. 
Surely such a prodigal orphan had never hitherto 
been heard of in the history of the world. The 
trio of indignation rose sour and shrill, and the 
three vied with each other in condemnation of the 
young man’s heartlessness, his infidelity, his fidelity, 
and all he had done and would not do. When 
they had done with him the common carrion crow 
of scandal might have declined to pick at his dis- 
figured carcase. There is nobody who can malign 
a youthful wrongdoer like the elders of his own 
blood. 

His lordship, who was not an active man as a rule, 
was for prompt and vigorous action. The confidential 
old family butler was sent for and despatched to Mr. 
Fergusson’s office in the city in Lady McCorquodale’s 
own carriage, with instructions to return imme- 
diately with Mr. Wynne. Pending the young man’s 
arrival they slew his thrice-slain character again and 
again, and by the time he came they were in such 
a state of solemn, wrathful awe at his wickedness 
as they could find no words for. Lord Hounes, as 
representing most nearly the family’s sublime head, 
took the peccant youth in hand. He stood upon the 
hearthrug, with one hand beneath his coat-tails and 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


69 


the other thrust into his waistcoat, in that attitude 
of natural dignity he had been wont to assume 
before his constituents, and in the House. The 
ladies, in their out-of-door attire, sat at either side 
of him. 

“Young man,” said Lord Hounes, “we have 
sent for you in order to give you an immediate 
opportunity of explaining a transaction which bears 
upon its face indisputable evidences of the blackest 
turpitude.” 

“ In that case,” the criminal returned, “ it may be 
hardly worth explaining. Your lordship was good 
enough not to know me when last we met. I thought 
it possible that you might have wished to make an 
apology.” 

At this daring speech, which indicated a wicked- 
ness beyond his years, Mrs. Brotherick shuddered 
violently, and became rigid. Her ladyship flounced 
in her chair, and gave vent to an inarticulate note 
of contempt and anger. Lord Hounes withdrew 
the hand which had rested in his waistcoat, and 
magnificently waved the accused to silence. 

“Your insolence,” he said, “can serve no object. 
It is useless to say that it may exacerbate the wound 
you have already inflicted upon the family feeling 
and the family character and the family pride, a 
feeling, a character, and a pride, sir, which are not 
accustomed to be dragged through the humiliating 
dust of base intrigue, or ” 

Harry relieved him from a dilemma, for his 
lordship positively saw no fitting close to his period. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir. Will you be so good as 


70 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

to tell me what I have done ? I may be better 
able to accept your denunciations afterwards.” 

The young man was sore against his titled rela- 
tive, and thought he had a right to be. Lord 
Hounes had publicly insulted him, without a cause 
that he himself could trace, and the boy had no more 
idea of the meaning of his lordship’s oratorical 
greeting than the man in the moon might have had. 

‘‘ Lady McCorquodale,” said his lordship, sup- 
pressing himself by an heroic effort, “has just 
returned here from the shop of Mr. Butterfield, 
a jeweller, in Conduit Street.” The criminal turned 
a little white at this, and winced. He had thought 
it punishment enough for his past recklessness 
that he should have to pay something like a thou- 
sand pounds for a year or two’s interest on three 
hundred, and he had not counted on the humilia- 
tion of discovery. It was bad enough to know 
that he had been a fool, and that he had so heavily 
crippled his own resources. “ She has learned 
there,” pursued his lordship, “that you are infamously 
in debt there, and that the objects you purchased 
could have but one destination. You pretend, sir, 
to aspire to the hand of an innocent and charming 
young lady ; you persist with a degrading selfish- 
ness in standing in that young lady’s way to wealth 
and an honourable position ; you profess yourself 
to be animated by a lofty and Quixotic attach- 
ment, and in the same hour with all this you pursue 
an intrigue with some vile and abominable woman 
whom you hide from the eyes of your family and 
of the world.” 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


71 


“ That is absolutely untrue, sir,” Harry an- 
swered. 

“ Untrue ! ” thundered his lordship. “ Lady McCor- 
quodale and Mrs. Brotherick have with their own 
eyes beheld the evidence of your infamy.” 

The young man’s blood boiled, but he restrained 
himself, and indeed the thought that they were 
stabbing at him through Inthia so sickened him a 
moment later that he had need rather to spur than 
to control himself. For a mere instant the thought 
assailed him that the construction Lord Hounes put 
upon his purpose was manufactured for the family 
uses, but he himself was too natively just-minded 
to hold that suspicion long. He had to admit that 
the charge looked probable. 

“ May I ask your lordship,’ he said, “ to employ a 
little moderation ? Will you do me the bare justice 
to tell me of what you accuse me ? ” 

“ Do me the favour then,” returned his lordship, 
“ to respond categorically to nfiy inquiries. Are you, 
or are you not, indebted to Mr. Butterfield ? ” 

‘‘ I am indebted,” Harry answered, “ to Mr. Butter- 
field in the sum of two thousand three hundred pounds. 
I have a constant assurance that he will willingly 
wait two years for the money, and in that time I 
expect to be able to pay him.” 

‘‘ Indeed ! ” rejoined his lordship, with a sneer, 
which set Harry’s blood racing and boiling again. 
“And now you will tell me with what other object 
than to pander to your own vices you made that 
extravagant purchase! For whom did you buy 
those jewels ? ” 


72 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

“ I bought them for myself,” he answered 
desperately. 

His lordship and Lady McCorquodale broke into 
a scornful laugh at this. 

“You expect us to believe that.^” her lady- 
ship asked. 

“ I expect to be believed in whatever I may say. 
I have a right to expect to be believed.” 

“To whom did you give those jewels.^” her 
ladyship asked. She was disposed to be directer 
in her inquiries than her brother. “ You may as 
well tell us the creature's name at once, and put 
an end to this disgraceful scene.” 

“ This,” said the boy desperately, “ is a private 
matter of my own, I have given no man the right 
to hold such language as Lord Hounes has used 
to me. If it concerns you to know that I bought 
the jewels I have owned the fact already. When I 
fail honourably to pay for them I will submit to 
anything you may choose to say to me.” 

This was all very well in its way, and he was 
conscious of enough right on his side to allow 
him to be angry and disdainful at the charges 
brought against him, but the thought of Inthia 
came again. They would tell her this wicked story, 
and would do their best to make her believe it. 
That cooled his courage, and he went on in another 
tune. 

“ My dear Lady McCorquodale, I give you my word 
of honour, my most solemn and unreserved assurance, 
that your suspicions concerning this affair are utterly 
unfounded.” 


V.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


73 


“ And you bought the jewels ? ” said her lady- 
ship. 

“ I bought the jewels.” 

“To whom did you present them 

“ I presented them to nobody.” 

“ Then you have them now ? ” 

“ No. They are no longer in my hands.” 

“ Where are they ? ” 

“ That, with all due regard to your ladyship, I must 
decline to say.’’ 

His lordship’s mind was suddenly enlightened, 
and if he had seen fit he could at that moment have 
hit the nail on the head at the first blow. But he 
was a bit of a diplomatist in his way, and 
preferred to nurse his conclusion as a secret. He 
remembered Harry’s visit, and his urgent request for 
a loan. The stones had been made away with, and 
the young man would not confess it. But since 
Providence had put in the family hands such an 
excellent means of separating him from Inthia as 
the surface story of the purchase afforded, he felt 
that it would be actually sinful not to use it. 

“Very well,” her ladyship responded, rising and 
drawing her furs about her. “ You understand, 
Mr. Wynne, that Inthia is my ward. I shall permit 
you to hold no further intercourse with her, and 
I desire that in future you will not address me or 
claim acquaintanceship in any way.” 

“Be good enough,” interjected his lordship, “to 
consider our knowledge of each other at an end. If 
you have any hope that your family will assist you in 
this shameful matter I take upon myself to say that to 


74 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP. V, 


whatever extremities you may be pushed, that hope is, 
and will remain, illusory.” 

After this there was nothing left but to go, with 
whatever dignity was possible, and the Pariah, thus 
solemnly ejected from the family circle, went away 
without a word. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Four or five hours had gone by before he could 
properly be said to think of anything. He walked 
unconsciously straight back to his chambers, and sat 
there in his gloves and hat, sternly surveying a wild 
whirl of inconsequent and incongruous fancies. He 
was like one dazed by a heavy blow on the head, too 
stunned to feel his own pain. It occurred to him 
often to think that he took things very easily, and 
once he said, with Hamlet, that he was pigeon-livered, 
and lacked gall to make oppression bitter. He could 
not even find energy to be angry at the epithets Lord 
Hounes had hurled upon him, nor even — stranger 
still — to care greatly about Inthia’s wounded heart 
when she should hear the calumny. Bit by bit the 
pain sharpened, the stunned feeling cleared away, and 
his mind got to work again. He began to think it 
inevitable that on the evidence against him Inthia 
must believe him guilty. He told himself that no- 
thing in the world should have persuaded him that 
she was unfaithful to him in a thought, and out of 


76 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


his own loyalty he brewed a cordial, warm and spiced 
enough to cheer his failing heart a little. Its effect 
was transitory ; the evidence against him was too 
strong. What could she do but believe that which 
everybody about her believed. He was forbidden her 
presence, and he knew how, with the exception of 
Inthia, everybody hailed his seeming downfall. They 
would press Humphrey Frost and his millions upon her 
now, and perhaps, in the sore desperation of her heart, 
she might accept him. He prowled up and down his 
room like a beast in pain. It is hard to be young 
and alive from head to heel, and to be thus fettered 
by the impossibilities, to stand behind invisible bars 
beyond which there is no passage, and to see the 
soul’s desire borne, passionately weeping, away. His 
own impotence writhed in him, like a twisted arrow 
in a wound. He was helpless, helpless, helpless! 
He could do nothing. 

Yes. One thing at least he could do. He could 
write to Inthia, and tell her the whole truth from first 
to last. It was humiliating, but by contrast with the 
lie the truth looked heavenly bright. He had been 
to blame, foolishly, wickedly to blame, but he was no 
inmate of the sty where Lady McCorquodale’s fancy 
saw him, the vile place Inthia was to be told of as his 
natural habitat. True to her! How could he be 
otherwise than true to her } all purity, truth, and 
goodness as she was. Could he leave the innocent 
tenderness of her eyes and the sweet welcome of her 
hands } That was a physical repulsion, a nauseating 
sickness, in the fancy. He was faithful to her to the 
core ; so faithful that fidelity was not a virtue in him. 


VI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


77 


Inthia meant the sex, and outside and beyond her 
there was no woman in the world to him. 

It was only when he began to look for writing 
materials that he became aware of the fact that he 
still wore his hat and gloves. He gave a little mirth- 
less chuckle at the discovery, and removed them. 
Then he sat down, and began to write. He filled 
sheet after sheet with wild protestations of truth and 
love, and when he had finished the letter, behold, it 
meant nothing to his mind. All the blood and 
passion, all the heat and fervour, seemed to have 
stopped short at his finger-tips. Not a tone of the 
wild kaleidoscopic splendours of his heart had touched 
the paper. It stared, blank, cold, and meaningless. 
He tore it across and across and threw it into the 
fire-grate, and began anew, with the same chilling 
result. He did not know how the night went by, 
but the noise of the fretful wind and the plash of the 
mournful rain outside were part of him. Many and 
many a time afterwards the noises of the stormy 
night brought back that time so vividly that his heart 
ached at them with the memory of its own old pain. 

At length, when he seemed to have cast all the 
scoriae out of his heart and brain, his thoughts ran 
clear. He wrote a letter, brief and lucid, in which he 
told, as well and clearly as another knowing all the 
circumstances could have told it for him, the story of 
his entanglement. He did not spare his own foolish- 
ness, but he closed with a humble hope that it was 
over, and that his lesson would last him for his 
lifetime. 

He looked up, and lo ! the day had dawned outside 


75 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap 


already. He drew up one of the blinds, and looked 
out upon the street. A solitary policeman paced, 
gleaming there in his oilskin cape, and a fog rolled 
about the roofs of the houses and obscured the 
chimney-pots opposite. The desolate silence weighed 
like lead, but he had gone through too much already 
to have any great keenness of feeling left. He threw 
himself upon the sofa* and in a while fell stupidly 
asleep. 

The entrance of the house porter with broom and 
dustpan failed to awake him, but on the man’s return 
with breakfast and letters he made a judicious clatter, 
and Harry came out of his dreams. He looked at 
the letters wearily as they lay upon the table, and 
turned them over with negligent fingers, until he 
caught sight of Inthia’s writing. A great shock went 
through him, and he knew that he held the news of 
his fate in his own hands. He tore the envelope 
open, and the first line he read assured him, and shot 
warm conviction of safety through him from head to 
heel. 

“ My Dearest Harry, — I do not believe a word of 
the wicked and shameful story that Lady McCorquo- 
dale has told to me. She says that we are not to 
meet again, but that will make no difference to me, 
and I am sure that it will make no difference in you. 
You must be brave, dear, and hope and have patience. 
I dare not wait to write more. — Yours ALWAYS, 

“ INTIIIA.” 

He kissed that brave message a hundred times, 
and hugged it, and kissed it again. Oh ! the honest, 


VI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


79 


loyal heart ; the peerless creature ! In spite of fo^, 
rain, smoke, and wind, the wide world beamed with 
sunshine. He dashed rejoicingly into his bedroom, 
tore off his raiment with rollicking scraps of song 
plunged into his tub, and emerged from it like a 
radiant young giant. He dressed, and sat down to 
breakfast in an exquisite complacency. His inner 
man reminded him now that he had forgotten to 
dine the day before. He rang for more eggs, and a 
further supply of devilled kidney, and made an 
exuberant meal. What did he care about Lord 
Hounes and Lady McCorquodale and Mrs. Brotherick 
now } Their suspicions had no longer power to vex 
him. He sang that the whole family syndicate might 
go to Hong Kong, might go to Hong Kong, might 
go to Hong Kong for him. You would have been 
hard put to it to find a happier young man in 
London. 

In this joyful mood he was preparing for his daily 
journey to the city, when the house porter brought 
him a letter addressed in a hand unknown to him. 
The messenger who had brought it was instructed 
to wait for a response. Harry glanced first at the 
signature, and found that the missive came from 
Captain Heaton. 

“ My dear boy,” it ran, “ for Heaven’s sake corne 
round to me at once. Do not lose a moment. It is 
a matter of the most urgent consequence to yourself.” 

Wondering what this might mean, Harry marched 
off in front of the messenger, and in three minutes 
from his receipt of the letter found himself in Captain 
Heaton’s presence. The morning plumage of the 


So HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

worthy captain was gay and brilliant. He was in a 
gorgeously flowered and embroidered dressing-gown, 
and wore Turkish slippers and a scarlet fez. He 
had begun his day’s work early, and was already 
engaged over a brandy and soda and a cigar. In the 
evening, all things considered. Captain Heaton was a 
youngish-looking man for his years, but in the morn- 
ing the rafflsh traits peeped out in the bulbous under- 
lid of his eyes, creased into thick folds, and in the 
strongly accentuated crows’ feet. He offered his 
visitor a similar refreshment to that of which he was 
himself partaking, and his offer being declined, he 
sat in apparently uneasy silence for a moment, tugging 
at his moustache. To his visitor s mind he bore the 
air of a man who has an unpleasant communication 
to make, and is unwilling to make it. 

** Do you know, my dear boy,” said Heaton, sud- 
denly, as if he had made up his mind to have the 
unpleasant business over, “ do you know, my dear 
boy, that you’ve got yourself into a devil of a 
mess ? ” 

Upon my word, I don’t,” returned Harry. “ Do 
you ? ” 

‘‘ I shall be deuced glad if I don’t,” said the 
captain. ‘‘You don’t mean to tell me that you don’t 
know what you’ve done ? ” 

“Now,” said young Wynne, lifting his eyes and 
looking squarely at the captain’s face, “ to tell you 
the truth, Heaton, I had enough of that sort of thing 
yesterday to satisfy me for the rest of my life. If I 
have done anything, be good enough to tell me at 
once what it is. If it concerns you in any w^ay I will 


VI.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 8l 

give you whatever explanation you may have a right 
to.” 

“ If he has done anything ! ” repeated the captain, 
as if appealing to some invisible third person who 
knew all about it and was bound to share his ov/n 
friendly sorrow. 

Harry kept a resolute good temper. 

“ I have done many things in my life,” he said. 
“All sorts of things — good, bad, and indifferent. 
What is the one thing you want to speak about ? ” 

“ Well, upon my word,” said Heaton, “you take it 
coolly.” 

“ I try to,” the young man answered. 

Captain Heaton threw the theme clean away with 
both hands, and looked mournfully resigned. 

“ You — you don't know } You — you don't know ? ” 
he said, a moment later, knitting his eyebrows in 
inquiring wonderment, and leaning across the table 
towards his companion. 

“Confound it all, man !” cried the badgered youth, 
“ I have told you already that I don't know. Doj'oic 
know ? Upon my soul I think the whole world s 
going mad together.” 

“ Oh ! ” said the captain, with an air of injured 
friendship, “ if you take that tone, Wynne, it's no 
affair of mine.” 

“ Whose affair is it Harry asked. 

“Gad!” said Heaton, “I should say it's yours, if 
it’s anybody's; but if you choose not to know any- 
thing about it, and to resent a friendly intervention, 
you may go to the deuce your own way, by Jove^ 
and there's an end of it.” 


G 


82 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

“ Will you tell me,” asked Harry, rising, ‘‘ what it 
is you want to talk about ? ” 

“ Oh ! well, if you insist on knowing nothing at all 
about it,” returned the captain, “Til try to refresh 
your memory. Did you ever meet one Butterfield, a 
jeweller, in Conduit Street ? ” 

‘‘ Yes,” said Harry. “ What about him 
Did you buy over two thousand pounds worth of 
jewellery from him ? ” 

“I did. And what of that ” 

“ Will you tell me what you did with the jewel- 
lery ? ” 

There was a pause of a second or two, during 
which Harry regarded the captain with a growing 
air of sardonic humour. 

“ Tm glad to see jy^u turning evangelist,” he said, 
rather grimly. “ I suppose you know Miss Tearsheet’s 
ways as well as anybody. You ought to be experi- 
mentally qualified to denounce them. I took a 
lecture from Lord Hounes and Lady McCorquo- 
dale on that subject yesterday ; but Til be hanged if 
ril stand one from you.” 

It was the captain’s turn to be bewildered. 

“ I don’t a bit know what you are talking about,” 
he said, “ and unless ^ you’re an uncommonly good 
actor. I’m beginning to think you don’t know either. 
Here’s a plain question, and you can give it a plain 
answer if you like. Did you pawn those diamonds ? 

“ Of course I did. That’s what I bought them 
for.” 

“Well, good Lord,” said Heaton, staring at him, 
with a beautifully deceptive aspect of astonishment, 


VI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


83 


he confesses it ! He talks about it as if it were the 
most ordinary transaction in life ! Do you know what 
youVe done ? ” 

‘‘ I have told you what I have done.” 

“ No, you haven’t, my boy,” Heaton responded, in a 
tone of almost fatherly sadness, “but /’ll tell jyou what 
you’ve done. You’ve committed a fraud in the eye of 
the law. You have laid yourself open to arrest and 
trial on a charge of fraud, and if the case is proved as 
you confess it you may get two years, with or without 
hard labour, according to the judge’s fancy.” 

The speech was not a long one, but before it came 
to an end Harry had dropped back into his chair, 
staring at the captain with a face so horror-stricken 
that it cost even that practised gentleman a momentary 
twinge. Heaton poured oul a glass of brandy and 
pushed it over to him. 

“ Drink that,” he said, “ and pull yourself together. 
My poor boy ! why the dickens didn’t you come to 
me ? I’d have pawned my last shirt rather than see 
you in a mess like this. Why didn’t you ask some- 
body ? Any man of the world would have told 
you.” 

“ I did it on Hump’s advice,” gasped Harry. “ I 
did it to pay him.” 

“ On Hump’s advice ! ” shrieked Heaton. “ Non- 
sense ! ” 

“ He was in an awful mess. He wanted the money. 
He had a bill of mine. You know all about that. 
He said it was a matter of public bankruptcy for 
both of us, and he sent me to Butterfield.” 

“ The fool ! ” cried the captain, with every appear- 

G 2 


84 


HE FE^L AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


ance of rage and amazement “ I wonder if that’s 
why he cleared out last night ? Butterfield’s furious. 
I met a man who saw him yesterday after your aunt 
had left him, and he was vowing vengeance. He 
swears that you gave him distinctly to understand that 
you wanted the jewels for a lady, and the first thing 
he’ll do this morning will be to get out a summons. 
There’s nothing for it, my dear boy, but to go to your 
friends, and rake the money together anyhow.” 

“ My friends,” said the victim miserably, “ I haven’t 
any friends, except for my uncle Seaforth, and he’s 
got next to nothing. I’d rather suffer anything than 
go to him.” 

‘‘You’ve got one friend, my boy,” said the captain 
sympathetically. “ I’m in a deucedly tight corner 
myself. Half the club owe me money, and I can’t stir 
it Peter Heaton’s everybody’s mug. But I’ve got 
a loose three hundred. I think I can rake in another, 
or even two. Call it five hundred. You can reckon 
on that, Wynne, if you can square Butterfield with it. 
I’m not the man to see a chum go underground if 
I can help it.” 

With that the benevolent captain rose, in so fine 
a flush of friendly enthusiasm that young Wynne 
grasped his hand with a hot moisture in his honest 
unsuspecting eyes. The captain wrung his hand 
hard. 

“ We must do our best, my boy. Butterfield’s very 
hard, but he’s really been had so often that even if a 
decent fellow comes across him he gets taken for 
a sharp. Run over and see him at once. It would 
be horrible if a thing like this were made public.” 


VI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


85 


Heaton, old boy,” said the unsuspicious greenhorn, 
flushing with gratitude, ‘‘ Til never forget this. You’re 
a good fellow, Heaton. I — Fm — Fm enormously 
obliged to you.” 

With that he went away palpitating, in search of 
Mr. Butterfield. That gentleman had not yet arrived, 
but his customer waited for him, and in less than 
a quarter of an hour he came. He was mightily 
frosty and dignified, and in rubbing his hands no 
longer smoothed them with soft, propitiatory motion 
beneath his chin, but wrung them heartily on a level 
with his watch chain. 

“ I desire to hold no intercourse with Mr. Wynne,” 
said Butterfield, gazing askance from his visitor, with 
a solemn and reproving dignity. “ The matter is in 
the hands of my solicitor. It will take its course — its 
^proper and befitting course.” 

Poor Harry urged the captain’s five hundred 
pounds, and the two hundred he had in hand, but 
Butterfield was obdurate, and as deaf to persuasion 
as an adder. 


CHAPTER VIL 


Between eight and nine o’clock that night the 
continental mail flying fast through the dark between 
London and Dover carried Harry Wynne and his 
troubles with it. It was a wild night, and there were 
but few passengers, so that he had a compartment to 
himself. He stood upright in order that he might 
read by the light of the carriage lamp a document in 
which his sorrows were set forth with a dreadful legal 
precision. This document bore the initials of royalty, 
and called upon Harry Wynne to appear on that day 
week at the Marlborough Street Police Court to 
answer certain charges preferred against him by one 
William Henry Alexander Butterfield. The charges 
included fraud, the obtaining of goods by false pre- 
tences, and illegal pawning. The reader felt hideously 
criminal, even in his own consciousness of innocent 
intent. The fact of criminality clung like tar. 
Nothing seemed capable of washing it away. 

The passenger by the continental mail was not 
flying from the face of justice. He was in pursuit 


CHAP. VII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


87 


of Herbert Whale, whose idiotic or diabolic council,* 
whichever it might prove to be, had brought him 
to this pass. Mr. Herbert Whale, in leaving London 
at a critical moment, had taken the precaution not to 
leave his address where Harry seemed likely to find 
it. But a five-pound note had unlocked the heart 
of the club porter, who had murmured “ Grand 
Hotel de TAthenee, Paris.’’ The young man was 
resolute to have Whale back to London to confess 
the advice that he had given. He would have him 
there, he declared to himself, if he haled him by 
the scruff of the neck on foot, and swam the Channel 
with him. He was as yet unconscious of the fact 
that the Rapide bore the fleeting Hump southward 
from Paris almost as fast as the mail train bore 
himself Paris-wards. That intelligence, however, 
reached him at what he had supposed would be 
his journey’s end. 

Whale had gone to Nice, and though his letters 
were to be addressed at the Poste Restante, Harry 
had but little doubt of finding him with ease. There 
were not more than half a dozen hotels in Nice to 
which he would be likely to go, and an hours inquiry 
would exhaust them. He passed a weary impatient 
day in Paris. The rain came down in one continuous 
deluge, and he sat mournfully alone amid a profusion 
of sporting papers, which he tried to read in vain. 
Night came at last, and saw him started on his new 
journey. The skies shone blue in Nice, and the April 
air was soft and warm, but the change of climate 
had no solace for him. He took a carriage at the 
terminus, and sought his man wherever he could 


83 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


think of. He could find no news of him, and at 
last decided to run on to Monte Carlo. No gentle- 
man of Mr. Whale's proclivities could rest so near 
the charms of roulette and trente et quarante without 
being attracted by them. The Salle des Jeux was the 
likeliest place for him, and thither Harry betook 
himself He steered round every table, and satisfied 
himself that Whale was not there. He stalked up 
and down the atrium, sat drearily in the reading 
room, and for a while tried the concert hall, and 
did his best to listen to the music. 

He stayed that night at the Hotel de Paris, and 
went back to Nice next morning to renew his search. 
He saw plenty of people whom he knew, but had no 
heart to make up to any of them. By and by, and 
the hunt had gone on now for two or three unsuccess- 
ful days, he began to have a grisly feeling that 
none of his acquaintances cared to notice him. 
Once or twice he wondered if a veil of invisibility 
had fallen round him. He bowed to Lady Dyaz and 
her daughters, and they went by him with a perfect 
unconsciousness, though he could almost have sworn 
that they had seen him, and he had danced with the 
eldest girl not seven weeks ago. This was not the 
only sign he had. People whom he knew became 
suddenly engaged in the contemplation of trivial 
objects when he came in sight, and others had a 
suspicious knack of going round corners, or of taking 
the other side of the street. 

There was at Monte Carlo a certain Lord Ballystead, 
one of our hereditary legislators, a born stableman, 
though he came of an excellent house, a disreputable, 


VII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


C9 

foul-mouthed young nobleman whom nobody trusted, 
and who had crowned a life of blackguard folly by 
marrying a ballet girl of unusually blemished ante- 
cedents. When it came to this gentleman’s turn to 
show Harry Wynne his back, the young man’s cup 
overflowed with a sudden and galling bitterness. 
He marched straight to his lordship and tapped him 
on the shoulder with his walking-cane. 

“ Good day, Ballystead.” 

His lordship’s ill-bred scowl looked backwards. He 
stared blankly for five insolent seconds and turned 
away. Harry walked swiftly round him. 

‘‘ Come, Ballystead,” he said, ‘‘ one dare not know 
you at home, but one can speak to you here. What's 
the meaning of this ? ” 

‘‘ I don’t usually speak to people who’ve run away 
from charges of fraud,” responded his lordship. The 
statement was garnished — cela va sans dire. Lord 
Ballystead walked away, with his stable swagger, 
and with his walking-stick cocked defiantly under his 
arm-pit. 

There are not many ways of responding to a speech 
of that sort ; in fact it may be said that there are no 
more than two, but choice, though limited, is difficult. 
There is nothing for it but personal maltreatment 
or silence, and whilst rage and dignity struggled 
with each other in Harry’s mind, his lordship solved 
the disagreeable problem for him by stepping 
into a public carriage close at hand and driving 
away. 

Here was the explanation of all averted looks or 
cold unrecognising glances. Harry wandered in the 


90 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


warm spring sunshine about the beautiful gardens 
scarcely daring to look up lest he should encounter 
some new accusing pair of eyes. This fit soon passed, 
and he was marching about in a conscious defiance of 
the world. Nobody had the right to brand him as a 
defrauder. 

He walked back to the Casino, and entered the 
playing room. It was early as yet, so far as the hour 
of the day went, but it was getting late in the season, 
and between the two factors the tables were but 
thinly attended. Almost the first person who caught 
his eye was Hump, chastely attired in a chess-board 
tweed, languidly punting for louis at the trente et 
quarante. Harry moved quietly towards him and laid 
a hand upon his shoulder. Mr. Whale turned easily 
round, apprehending an ordinary acquaintance, and 
his nerves being somewhat enfeebled by the achieve- 
ments of the previous night gave a slight start on 
recognizing his pursuer. 

“ Come outside a moment,” said Harry. ‘‘ I want to 
speak to you.” 

‘‘ Hold on a bit,” returned the other ; “ IVe got a 
run on the black, and I want to follow it.” 

Almost as he spoke the croupier called “ Rouge 
gagne.” 

‘‘ There’s your run on the black finished,” said the 
young man soberly. Come outside. I want to 
speak to you.” 

Mr. Whale, not willing to make too great a show of 
unwillingness, gathered his little golden handful to- 
gether and slipped it into his pocket. He had gone 
cool and self-possessed again, and was quite 


VII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


91 


insouciant to look at. They paused together in the 
atrium, and Harry came to the point at once. 

“You have heard the news about me and that affair 
of Butterfield’s ? ” 

“No,” said Hump, feigning astonishmient and 
ignorance clumsily. 

“ I see you have,” said the youngster, laying 
an unconscious hand upon the lappel of his 
coat, and holding him more tightly than he knew. 
“You have got to come straight back with me to 
London.” 

“ Not much I haven’t,” Hump responded, making 
an effort to disengage himself. He had already for- 
gotten his initial profession of ignorance, and made 
no further pretence that way. The atrium itself was 
quite clear, but two or three stalwart Suisses loitered 
at the entrance beyond the glass doors. 

“ I have to appear at Marlborough Street on Tues- 
day. There’s only just time to get there. You must 
come and acknpwledge your part in the business. I 
got into this scrape by following your advice. An 
honest word from you is the only service I can expect 
from anybody.” 

“Got into the scrape from following my advice,’" 
said Whale. “ What advice } ” 

Harry’s eyes began to gleam somewhat dangerously, 
and Hump, among whose personal virtues courage 
bore no conspicuous place, began to feel uncomfort- 
able, and to wish himself, or the young man, at a 
distance. 

“You told me, ’’.said Harry, “ to go to Butterfield. 
You said that he would trust me for a year or 


92 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

two, and advised me to take what I had bought to 
Attenborough/’ 

“Jumping Moses!” Mr. Whale ejaculated, with a 
less convincing display of surprise than ever. 

“ You mean to deny that the young man asked, 
tightening his unconscious grip upon the coat. 

“Deny it!” said Hump, in futile bluster. “What 
sort of an idiot do you take me for ? I tell you to go 
to Butterfield and buy things and pawn ’em afterwards ? 
Why you’re mad ! ” 

“ You mean to say that you deny it ? ” 

“ I mean to say,” Hump responded, swaggering at 
him, “ that it’s a blooming lie.” 

In cases of this kind there are apt to be sudden and 
spasmodic actions of the muscle for which the reason 
cannot at all be held responsible. Mr. Whale was on 
the floor, and there was a curious touch of wonder in 
Harry’s mind as to how he came there. Mr. Whale 
looked astonished, but could have explained the cir- 
cumstance if he had been so disposed. His assailant 
towered over him, with all the warmth the blow had 
let loose flaming in his veins and sparkling in his 
eyes. 

“ Get up ! ” he said, grasping his walking-cane in a 
threatening manner. The discerning Hump thought 
it more expedient to lie still, but help was at hand 
for him and came at full speed from half-a-dozen 
quarters. The indignant assailant was dragged away 
by as many stalwart hands as could lay hold of him 
at once, and ignominiously ejected. He went stam- 
mering fiercely in French, of whiqh language he was 
by no means master, and interjecting for the punished 


VII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


93 


rascal's behoof a savage threat or two in his native 
tongue. He was lithe and muscular, and unwilling to 
go, and as a result of all this when he found time to 
think about it he felt half dislocated from head to 
foot, and he discovered moreover that his clothes were 
so wildly disarranged that he was a spectacle for de- 
rision. He hid himself in his hotel bedroom, and sat 
there wrathfully brooding. He could see now what 
an older and more experienced man could have told 
him from the start — he had been basely victimised. 
He set down Hump and Mr. Butterfield as accom- 
plices, and could only wonder how so excellent a 
heart as Captain Heaton could find it in his nature to 
associate with them. The two villains had plotted 
together to get two thousand for a beggarly three 
hundred, and had made a mistake as to his resources. 
He felt ruined, disgraced, and desperate. His assault 
on Mr. Whale had done no more than waken appetite, 
and he so tingled with wrath as he thought of him 
that in his more reasonable moments he understood 
himself, and was thankful that his enemy had been 
taken from his hands. He smoothed his ruffled 
feathers as best he could, and changed his torn attire. 
When he had once more made himself respectable to 
look at he went down stairs and sat in the hotel 
reading-room, painfully conscious of any chance look 
that touched him, and sensitively sore to every little 
attrition with the world. He took up an Englisii 
newspaper, and read absently the news from the East. 
That obstinate Eastern Question, which never gets 
solved, had been in full cry in all the European 
journals for months. Now the Bear was going Lo find 


94 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP. 


a solution for the Turkey’s difficulties by eating him, 
which, all things considered, seemed to be about the 
readiest if not the only way. The Russian artillery 
forces were languidly hammering at the Turkish forts 
on the other side the Danube. The war had opened 
spiritlessly, but everybody knew that it would wake 
up in a while. The news Harry Wynne read made 
the w'aking seem imminent. The Russian forces 
were pouring southward, and the Turkish streaming 
northward to meet them. Sulieman Pasha was de- 
finitely appointed Commander-in-Chief to the army 
in Roumania. Bulgarian peasant proprietors, for the 
offence of owning property desirable in the eyes of 
the rulers of their various Pashaliks, were being 
freely hanged. Disinterested patriots of all nations 
were away to Constantinople to join the Polish Legion. 

The lad’s young blood was fired already, and the 
war news, and that mention of the Polish Legion 
came like fuel to flame. Flis earliest baby remem- 
brances were of Uncle Percy and his talk of the 
Redan and the Malakoff, of Inkerman and Balaclava. 
He had taken in a patriotic hatred of the Russian 
almost with his mother’s milk. His first remembrance 
of his mother was as she wore her widow’s weeds, and 
his father had died gloriously on the heights of Alma. 
Patriotism, filial revenge, despair, and the hope of 
glory filled him all at once. He would leave this vile 
charge and his accusers behind him. He would go 
out eastward and strike a blow for feeble right, and 
make a name or die for it. 

He wrote a wild letter to Inthia, telling her some- 
thing of his purpose. He shed hot tears upon the 


VII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 95 

paper, but all the pains he suffered served only to 
harden his resolve. He took the next train for 
Marseilles, and happening by hazard to catch a 
steamer of the Messageries Maritimes at the moment 
of his arrival, was away on the Mediterranean blue 
at the hour when he should have presented himself 
at the court in London, leaving a blasted character 
behind him. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


At the Byzance Hotel in Constantinople there was 
residing at about this time an English gentleman 
who was entered on the books of the house as Mr. 
Ronald Morton, of Kekcwich, Cheshire, England. 
Mr. Ronald Morton was a young gentleman of five 
or six and twenty. He had a tall and graceful 
figure, a little young and slim for his years, and he 
presented to the observer one phenomenon which 
never failed to attract a momentary attention. He 
had eyes of a clear blue-gray, and a fair complexion, 
whilst his hair, eyebrows, beard and moustache were 
black and jetty as the raven’s wing. If so young a 
man could have been suspected of so consummate a 
dandyism — the thing is rather a refuge for foolish age 
than a trick of golden youth — the gloss of his curly 
hair and crisp little beard would have been suspicious. 
Mr. Ronald Morton, seen at his somewhat elaborate 
toilet of a morning, would have dissipated doubt. 
He carried amongst his belongings a bottle, a tiny 
brush, and a fine silver-gilt comb, and he always took 


CHAP. VIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


97 


care when he put these articles into requisition to 
have an excellent light and a trifold mirror. It was 
a singular bit of dandyism for a young man, and it 
was all the more curious because he was so unaffected 
in his manners, so simple, cordial, and honest in his 
looks. 

He had been staying at the Byzance for a week or 
two with his charming young bride and her brother 
There was a tone of romance about him to the other 
occupants of the hotel. He made no secret of his 
own concerns, and was, indeed, a little inclined to be 
frankly familiar about them even on a short acquaint- 
ance. He was the last of an old English family, had 
more money than he knew actually what to do with, 
owned land in two or three counties — not enough to 
boast of, but pretty little estates in their way, and 
had no creature in the world by whom he could be 
held responsible. He had availed himself of this 
freedom in the choice of his wife, who was a pretty 
little Bulgarian girl, of no particular wealth or station, 
even amongst the Christian population of the Turkish 
dominions. The lady's father was a merchant, English 
bred, and her brother had been trained at Owen's 
College, in Manchester. Little Anna spoke the 
prettiest English, and dressing rigorously after the 
latest Paris fashions, would have passed anywhere as 
a countrywoman of her husband's. 

On a certain fine morning Mr. Ronald Morton sat 
in his own room with a locked door between him and 
the outer world. His wife tapped at the barrier, and 
was answered in that sort of voice which everybody 
recognizes as being accompanied by a smile. The 

H 


98 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


smiling voice is recognizable by all ears, and by none 
more readily than by those of love. Mr. Morton was 
particularly engaged for the moment, but would join 
his bride in ten niinutes. The happy little lady 
prophesied her whereabouts and tripped away. Her 
husband devoted himself to the consideration of a 
loose pile of business documents, which lay spread on 
the table before him. It looked as if he were even 
a wealthier man than he cared to profess to be, for 
the loose little pile of business documents related 
mainly to valuables deposited in banks of high con- 
tinental standing, here, there, and everywhere. There 
were acknowledgments of sealed packets deposited 
for safe keeping with the Credit Lyonnais both at 
Paris and Marseilles, with Messrs. Rothschild at 
Vienna, Frankfort, and Naples, and with Messrs. 
Coutts at London. The owner of these agreeable 
documents was engaged in checking them against 
an entry in a pocket-book he carried, and in ticking 
figures for a large amount against each various entry. 
He added together the amounts with a look of deep 
satisfaction, and coaxing the papers into order, re- 
turned them to a cash-box, which he locked and hid 
away in the recesses of a great travelling trunk. He 
locked that in turn, and then presented himself to 
his waiting bride. The little lady wanted money, 
and was away upon a shopping expedition. The 
fond young husband supplied her lavishly, gave her 
a parting kiss, saw her away from the steps of the 
hotel, and watched the neat figure as it disappeared 
into the Grande Rue de Pera. He lit a cigarette, 
and after standing for a moment or two with an 


VIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


99 


agreeable smile upon his face, he also sauntered into 
the thoroughfare, and turned to the right. A very 
few seconds' easy strolling brought him in front of 
the rival and older hotel, which has so long flourished 
under the care of M. Misseri. In the dingy doorway 
of that excellent hostelry stood a hook-nosed man 
in pince-nez, thoughtfully looking from his toes to 
the houses opposite, as if he were instituting some 
comparison between them, but evidently so buried in 
thought that he saw neither. Mr. Morton, beholding 
this gentleman, -gave a start so faint as to be scarcely 
perceptible, and swinging round upon his heel, walked 
leisurely homewards. The agreeable smile he wore 
still lingered, but a very close observer might have 
remarked an odd kind of strained attention in it, as 
if the smile were anxious to know if there were a 
footstep, or even so much as a look behind him. 

He went straight back to his bedroom, and there 
began to pack with some dexterity and rapidity. He 
took a last look round to see that nothing had been 
forgotten, locked his great travelling chest, and 
sauntered down stairs into the smoking-room. Two 
gentlemen sat there over a syphon-bottle and a carafon 
of cognac. They were chatting animatedly, and in 
their talk employed indifferently French and Italian. 

‘‘Vergueil is here,” said one. “He is staying at 
Misseri's. I spoke to him an hour ago. Of course 
he told me nothing, but what else could have brought 
him here ? ” 

“That is his business, as like as anything,” sakl 
the other. “ I heard last night that some of the 
notes had been changed at Hansard's.” 


II 2 


lOO 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


“ It was cleverly done/’ said number one. “ But 
these railway robberies are getting a little frequent, 
eh ? I wonder if it is always the same gang. Of 
course it is not easy to dispose of valuable securities? 
but they say that the last haul was for two millions 
of francs. It would seem to be a profitable line of 
business.” 

“ Dangerous, one would think,” said Mr. Morton, 
smilingly. 

The two gentlemen laughed, and responded, “ Dan- 
gerous enough.” 

The conversation ended there, and perhaps half 
an hour later the smiling little bride came back again. 
Her husband met her with a grave and troubled face. 

“ Since you left, my dear,” he said, in the gentlest 
tones, winding a protective arm about her waist, “ I 
have received a telegram from Philipopolis. Poor 
Rae is dying there. I must actually go up and see 
him. You must go on to Athens with Ivan alone, 
and I will follow you as soon as possible.” 

“ Who is dying, dear } ” asked the bride. 

“ Poor Rae, my darling,” her husband answered. 
“ Dick Rae. You must have heard me speak of him.” 

“ I don’t remember, dear,” the bride answered, with 
a downcast face. 

“ No ! ” cried the husband in astonishment. “ That’s 
strange. Poor Dick went up into the rose country, 
to bargain for otto of roses. He thought that with 
the war beginning he would be able to make rare 
bargains. I strongly advised him to go, poor fellow. 
I must go up and see him, if I can get there in time. 
You see that, darling, don’t you ? You wouldn’t care 


VIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. loi 

much for me if even the temptation of your society 
could keep me away from an old chum at a time like 
that/’ 

He spoke tenderly and persuasively. The little 
bride put her arms about him. 

“ No, no, darling. You must go.” 

“ I knew you would say so, dear. I have packed 
already.” 

“ May I see the telegram ? ” asked the bride. 

“ Certainly, my darling,” responded the husband 
with alacrity, and instantly began a bright, confident 
search in his pockets. Then the brisk movements 
slowed down, and his face took an air of perplexity. 
‘‘What on earth can have become of it ?” he asked. 
Then, with a quick smile, “ Oh ! I know. I shoved it 
into my cash-box with a lot of papers I was looking 
at. The cash-box is at the bottom of the trunk, and 
it’s hardly worth while unpacking everything.” 

Of course it was hardly worth while to unpack 
everything. The little bride assented willingly to 
that proposition, and Mr. Ronald Morton began to 
make immediate preparations for her departure by the 
boat that evening. He was quite a model husband, 
and had the most contriving ways. He assisted his 
wife and her maid in packing, and overcame many 
small difficulties for her, and he was so tenderly 
regretful at their enforced parting, and so full of pity 
and anxiety for poor Dick Rae, that the little woman 
became haunted by her own conception of the drawn, 
dying, waiting face, and was as eager to have her 
husband gone as he himself was to go. 

When all the preparations were completed the 


102 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


sympathetic young husband went back to his own 
room, and dropping into a chair there, sat thoughtful 
and silent for a minute or two. 

‘‘ Vergueil ! he said to himself. “ He had a sight 
of me once at the Caf^ des Variates. Once in a poor 
light isn't much. IVe changed a good deal in two 
years. The beard makes a difference." He rose and 
scrutinized himself closely in the glass. ‘‘ The colour 
makes all the difference in the world. Let me see, I 
was German then. Fritz von Eilsen, wasn’t it ? I 
think I’m safe. Vergueil’s a smart man, but I think, 
William, you’re almost as smart as Vergueil. You 
might begin to dawn on him if you spent a day 
in his society, but you won’t do that, William, will 
you .? ’’ 

The boat for Athens started at four o’clock that 
afternoon. The bride, her brother Ivan, and her 
maid were all on board a quarter of an hour before 
the time for starting, and the thoughtful husband 
was there to see that she had the most comfortable 
berth that could be secured for her, and to impress 
upon the stewardess, by the aid of a golden lira and 
his own engaging manners, the necessity of attending 
upon her carefully during the voyage. The bell 
sounded, there were kisses and farewells, the little 
bride sparkling between tears and smiles, and the 
husband delightfully tender to the last. 

“ She’s a pretty little creature,’’ he said to himself 
as he walked back towards Pera. “ I wonder if ever 
we shall fall across each other again ? ’’ 

He thought wonderfully little of poor Dick Rae, 
considering how deep a hold upon his sympathies 


VIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


103 


that dying sufferer had taken a few hours before, but 
being a bachelor for the time he took a bachelor 
freedom, ate an excellent dinner at the Cafe de St. 
Petersbourg, and passed a quiet evening over his 
coffee at the Greek open air theatre, a place little 
frequented by western visitors. He paid his bill 
over-night, and was ready to take the seven o’clock 
train northwards in the morning. 

He had paid his bill at the cashier’s box in the 
vestibule of the hotel, and had just pocketed his 
receipt when he heard his own name pronounced. 

“Monsieur Morton.” 

The voice spoke at the other end of the vestibule, 
and he turned to find that one of the hotel servants 
was addressing a gentleman who was a stranger to 
him. The man accosted turned, and the servant, 
with a start of surprise, made his apologies. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir. An error.” 

The stranger was a young fellow eminently English 
in aspect, and of the best English type. Slender as yet, 
but giving promise of a rare solidity, and facing the 
world with a handsome though boyish and unbearded 
face, and a pair of eyes which expressed a pleasing 
candour. 

The hotel servant moved away from him and 
approached the husband. 

“ I mistook the gentleman for you, sir,” he ex- 
plained. “ II y a une telle similarite.” 

The young Englishman smiled at this, and Mr. 
Ronald Morton smiled back again. The servant’s 
business related to nothing more important than the 
transfer of the luggage in the morning, and when it 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


104 


[chap. 


was over Mr. Ronald Morton crossed easily over to 
the young stranger and addressed him. 

‘‘ That fellow took you for me,” he said, ‘‘ and upon 
my word I don’t wonder at it.” When I turned at 
the sound of my own name and saw your back I 
couldn’t be sure for the moment that you weren’t 
me. Perhaps a man hasn’t a very intimate acquaint- 
ance with his own back aspect, but you see the 
waiter confirmed me beforehand.” 

At this the young stranger gave him the smile his 
jest and his own smiling face demanded, and they 
fell quite naturally into talk together. They were 
both young men, and in the course of a quarter 
of an hour they found themselves exchanging a 
certain limited confidence with each other — Mr- 
Harry Wynne supposing himself to be in converse 
with Mr. Ronald Morton, a gentleman whose landed 
estates lay at Kekewich, Cheshire, and Mr. Ronald 
Morton knowing himself to be in conversation with 
Mr. Harry Wynne, a young gentleman of patriotic 
impulses who had come out to offer his services to 
the Turk. Mr. Wynne had but a faint acquaintance 
with the county of Cheshire, and oddly enough had 
not heard of Kekewich, but as Mr. Morton remarked, 
the place lay nine miles from any railway, and that 
explained it. They smoked a cigar in company 
before going to bed, and Mr. Wynne was sorry 
when he learned that the other companionable young 
Briton was going north in the morning. 

They parted at midnight, and one of them at least 
lay long awake, listening to the wild bowlings of the 
packs of dogs careering in the street, and the 


VIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


105 


metallic stroke of the backchfs rod upon the sounding 
stones. 

At six o'clock Mr. Ronald Morton was astir. He 
crossed the Golden Horn in a caique under that 
miracle of sunrise which once in every twenty-four 
hours in springtime transforms the turbid waters to 
liquid gold, makes every tree a living emerald, and 
every mean hut along the shore of Galata a habitation 
for a poet. Mr. Ronald Morton regarded none of 
these things, but at every stroke of the sturdy brown 
legged caiquejee's bulbous-handled oars, thought ‘‘ So 
much further from Vergueil and danger, so much 
nearer the interior and safety.” In due time he 
reached the railway station, and there encountered 
face to face M. Vergueil himself, pacing the platform, 
alert and vigilant. Mr. Morton passed him without 
a sign, and approached the guichet to demand his 
ticket. M. Vergueil was at his elbow, he hoped and 
thought by hazard. He asked for his ticket in 
excellent Greek, with the true accent indeed of an 
Athenian dandy, was supplied with it, put a question 
or two in the same easy aristocratic accents, was 
answered, and strolled away. He saw his luggage 
safely stowed, and took his place in the carriage he 
had selected. The whistle sounded and the train 
started. In a little while it rumbled past the Seven 
Towers, and then he breathed freely. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Harry Wynne had come out to Constantinople in 
the first, or glowing, stage of the war fever. The boat 
which carried him touched at Naples, and had there 
taken up two or three English officers who were going 
out in expectation of being attached to that brilliant 
gendarmerie which was already constructed on paper 
and never got constructed in fact. The diplomatic 
and administrative offices of the Sublime Porte would 
seem to be filled by poets, who construct constantly 
the most charming and delightful schemes, and pigeon 
hole them pell mell for the bewilderment or guidance 
of some far Utopia. The British officers had tried to 
chill the war fever in the young man’s mind, but had 
in no wise succeeded. The subordinate officials who 
were concerned in the formation of that lamentable 
Polish Legion took the task in hand and quieted 
his pulses a little. He was full of enthusiasm about 
the Turk, and it was reserved for the Turk himself 
to damp him. The first word of the oriental tongue 
the young man learned was Yavosh, which being 
freely interpreted signifies, “ Take it easy,” or “ Go 


CHAP. IX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


107 


slow.” You learn that significant expletive in your 
first five minutes of Turkish experience, and are 
never allowed to forget it 

A young man whose heart is wrung with unmerited 
shame, and whose soul is on fire to do great deeds 
for the rehabilitation of his character, finds the gospel 
of go slow and take it easy hard to bear. Harry 
tasted the heart sickness of hoped deferred, and tasted 
it all the more bitterly because the beginning had 
such splendid promise in it. He had not been two 
days in Constantinople before somebody took him to 
a ramshackle old house in a back street in Pera, and 
somebody else swore him in as an officer in the 
Polish Legion. That hopeful body was so carefully 
constructed that when its directing spirits learned 
that the applicant was wholly ignorant of the art of 
war, and had never even been a volunteer, they 
declined to give him any higher commission than 
that of a lieutenant. They sent him to a tailor who 
knew the uniform, and in two or three days — at his 
own charges — he was attired in it. He walked about 
in military glory for half an hour, and at the end of 
that time, discovering himself to be an object of con- 
tumely, he took off his plumage and resumed his 
civilian fashion. He bought a horse and a saddle, a 
sabre, and a revolver, and waited for his marching 
orders. 

The denizens of hotels in Constantinople about this 
time began to know the meaning of war prices. There 
was daily news from the front of a more and more 
stirring kind, and the natural longing to be in the 
midst of action was made none the less keen by the 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


io3 


[chap. 


contemplation of a purse which shrank rapidly towards 
the actual diminishing point. 

Master Harry had known duns in his school and 
college days, but they had known him, and had at 
least been respectful. He had never seen before him 
until now the prospect of wanting a dinner, but now 
that came closer and closer, and at last he saw it face 
to face. He sold his watch and his ring, and moved 
into cheaper lodgings. He had brought but one small 
portmanteau with him, and his linen began to grow 
dingy. He noticed with a touch of almost abject 
terror that his boots were wearing down at heel. His 
horse had to go, and his saddle. He sold the sabre 
and the revolver a bargain. He came down to his 
last cigarette and his last coin. 

In those same cheap lodgings to which he had 
betaken himself, which were not far from the lower 
end of the Shooting Star, there was living a Cir- 
cassian officer, by name Ahmed Hamil, a jovial 
blackavised gentleman who had had two or three 
years' training in Woolwich Dockyard, as likely a 
place in which to finish a cavalry officer's education as 
even Turkish ingenuity could find. He spoke capital 
English, was a royal good fellow, and as poor as 
Harry himself They became great friends, and told 
each other all their hopes and despondencies. 

I am here," Hamil Bey would say, for he was 
never tired of expounding this one particular grievance, 
“to attempt to recover a fraction of two years' pay. 
I shall never get it, for not to pay is a Turkish art, 
my friend. I wish that you and I could acquire it 
If we could we might dine." 


IX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 109 

Harry produced his last medjidieh and looked at it. 

“ That would pay for a dinner.’’ 

‘‘ My young friend,” returned Hamil Bey, ‘‘ you 
had best keep that for bread. One does not dine on 
bread, but one can live on it. I,” said the brave 
gentleman, “have an invitation to dinner to-night, 
and I wish I could take you with me. I could not — 
it would be an unpardonable impertinence.” 

The good Hamil was going to dine with Duke 
Humphrey, but he was willing to spare his companion’s 
wretched resources, and not to let him know it. 

“ What’s going to come of it all ? ” the lad asked. 

The Circassian shrugged his shoulders as if to say 
that he declined to give the problem house-room. 
They rolled their last little scrap of tobacco and 
smoked it lingeringly, making the most of it. Then 
Hamil Bey went out to walk the streets hungry, 
under pretence of keeping his dinner engagement. 

Harry lingered in the shabby bedroom until the 
darkness began to fall, and the howling dogs gathered 
into packs to course about the streets and make night 
hideous. He was physically a little sick with hunger, 
and his heart was like a leaden coffin for dead hopes. 
He seemed to care wonderfully little, he thought, and 
indeed no man knows the real bitterness of such 
times as these till afterwards. Memory brings back 
their hideous nightmare, and the sufferer learns what 
he suffered. 

He arose at last, and wandered aimlessly into the 
street, toying with the coin as it lay lonely in his 
pocket. He passed a little French bakery where he 
had been wont to buy his daily loaf, and his foot 


no 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


lingered for a moment at the threshold. He went by 
somehow, not knowing why he resisted his own 
hunger, unless it were that the unbroken coin were 
a sort of symbol to him. His careless steps took 
him up the steep cobbled pavement of the hill of 
Galata, and led him to the Grande Rue. He shrank 
a little from the light of the shops and the eyes of the 
lounging crowd, but he hardened his heart and went 
on. He passed the hotel where he had spent his first 
few days of hopeful waiting, and pulled up short 
before the narrow entrance of the Concert Flamm. 

The Concert Flamm was one of half-a-dozen cafds 
chantants which at this time decorated the Grande 
Rue de Pera. The main features of all were identical. 
Each had a small band of Bohemian musicians, each 
had a fat and under-dressed lady who sang indelicate 
songs in French, and a meagre English young person 
who would not have been tolerated at a penny gaff in 
the East End of London, who interpreted the ditties 
of her native land. The nightly concert afforded the 
flimsiest possible shelter to the proceedings of a little 
gaming hell, where a polyglot crowd punted for silver 
pieces on a roulette table with twenty-four numbers 
and a double zero. A highly respectable fat Greek 
in a frock-coat and a fez spun the wheel and raked 
in the money. Play ran pretty high sometimes when 
an adventurer with money in his pockets came that 
way, but even at its worst the fat Greek made a fat 
and prosperous thing of it. 

Harry lingered at the door of the place for a minute 
or two. He had been there before, and knew its 
character. The amusements it offered had no great 


IX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


Ill 


attraction for him as a rule, but anything looked 
better just then than strolling in the streets. He 
walked up the dirty uncarpeted stair, and stood for a 
moment at the doorway. The fat Frenchwoman, in 
a low-necked, short-sleeved dress, had long since been 
old enough to know better, but she screeched her salt 
indecencies with a faded relish, and writhed and 
leered and ogled a thousand times more persuasively 
than she fancied on the side of virtue. The young 
exile, faint and heartsick, cast his uninterested eyes 
about the room, and seeing nobody he knew there 
passed through it and into the apartment where the 
fat Greek presided over his toy roulette and his two 
profitable zeros. There were not more than half-a- 
dozen players about the table, for the hour was early. 
Harry stood looking on for a while, caressing his 
solitary coin with his finger tips. His acquaintance 
with French literature was not large, but out of it 
there floated into his mind a phrase of Rousseau's. 
Balzac quotes it approvingly in the Peau de Chagrin, 
and it was there that he had found it. “ I understand 
play," says Jean Jacques, “ only when between a man 
and absolute ruin there stands his last crown." 

That's my case," thought Harry. He stood 
fingering his piece, wondering where he should place 
it. His eye lighted on zero, his hopes were there. 
He took the fancy as an inspiration, and threw down 
the coin. He had chosen the red zero, by hazard, 
because it happened to be nearer to him than the 
other. There was a faint tinge of hope in that ; red 
is the colour of hope. His heart began to beat wildly, 
and he had no courage to watch the revolving wheel. 


II2 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Turning his head away, and doing his best to look 
uninterested, he saw Hamil staring at him from a 
corner, looking pale and worn, and by no means like 
a man who had found an eleemosynary dinner. In 
the surprise of seeing him Harry forgot his stake and 
crossed over. 

“ I thought you were going out to dinner } ” he said. 

‘‘ I was, my son,” the Circassian responded with a 
flickering smile ; “ but my man was out. I suppose 
he had forgotten me.” 

“Then,” said Harry, “you haven't dined at all 
to-day.?” 

The Circassian shrugged his shoulders with a repeti- 
tion of the flickering smile, but gave no verbal 
answer. 

“I suppose I have thrown my last medjidieh away,” 
said Harry. “ Fll see what's become of it." 

He crossed over to the table, and there on the red 
zero lay a small pile of gold and silver. 

“ Is that mine .? ” he asked swiftly. Nobody 
answered him. It was not the fat Greek's business 
to understand English at that moment. He began to 
stammer in French “ Est-ce que ceci ” 

“ Rien ne va plus ! ” cried the croupier, and spun 
the fatal wheel, warning off Harry's hovering fingers 
with his rake. 

“ Oui, monsieur,” said a fezzed bystander, “ vous 
avez gagn^ mais vous etes trop tard pour retirer la 
mise.” 

His wondering look showed that he had only half 
understood, and the bystander repeated his phrase 
slowly with explanatory gesture. The fatal wheel 


IX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


113 


slowed down. Harry’s eyes counted the money 
hungrily. There were six golden lire lying there — 
almost six pounds in English money. If he had not 
crossed over to Hamil it would all have been his, and 
the pair of them could have lived upon it for weeks. 
He had been but a second too late, and he watched 
this flying gift of chance despairingly. The wheel 
stopped, and the marble made its last click. A tre- 
mendous blow between the shoulders drove him 
forward, half across the table, and Hamil’s voice 
roared “ Bravo ! Chokularishah Padishah ! ” 

At this patriotic sentiment the little crowd laughed, 
but the fat croupier’s face went green. 

“ Zero rouge,” he said, as if the words were plucked 
out of him, and began with Jewish fingers to count 
out the money for payment. Hamil made a royal 
row with the croupier for having compelled the 
player to leave more than the maximum sum 
allowed by the rules of the bank, but Harry, cram- 
ming the coins into his pocket, dragged the Tchircasse 
away. They ran down the stairs with flushed cheeks 
and kindling eyes, and raced up the narrow street until 
they came to the Concordia. They entered boister- 
ously and demanded dinner, spread the glittering 
haul upon the table and counted it with eager hands 
apd eyes. They had a hundred and six pounds 
Turkish, a full half of it in those noble five lire pieces 
which shine with so glorious a contrast amidst the 
ordinary metallique currency of the most bankrupt 
nation in the world. They laughed and sparkled at 
each other, calling for wine and chaffing the waiter 
who took their orders. They pledged each other 

1 


1 14 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

with chinking glasses, and for one superb five minutes 
they were gay. 

Then they dined. Ye gods ! how they dined ! 
The red mullet, the quail, the tomato farci, the mutton 
cutlets — in the spring of the year the traveller finds 
nothing but these dishes in the capital of the European 
orient. In the days of their prosperity they had 
grown weary of their eternal repetition, and would 
have exchanged them gladly, as the poet puts it, for 
“ one rump steak, one pint of ale.” But now they were 
pure ambrosia. When the dinner was over they had 
half a mind to begin it again, but the counsels of 
prudence prevailed. 

They sat over cigarettes and coffee, and Harry, 
seeing himself free of the waiter’s eyes, began again 
to count over his gains. This time he divided 
them into two equal sums, and pushing one pile 
towards his companion, raked up and pocketed the 
other. 

“ What is this, my boy ? ” asked the Circassian. 

‘‘ That’s your share,” Harry answered. 

“No, no,” said the other, pushing it back again, 
“ I will borrow a piece or two if you will let me, but 
I cannot take it all.” 

“ Chums’ luck,” said Harry. “ If I had lost you 
would have gone without your dinner. We counted 
this afternoon that the last piece belonged to both 
of us.” 

“Aha!” cried Hamil, “but that was another 
matter.” 

“ I should not have won it if it had not been for 
you. I should have been content with the six, and 


IX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 115 

should have taken it Come, its a free gift of fortune. 
Take your share and be thankful.” 

Hamil drew the pile together, and leaned an arm 
on each side of it. 

‘‘You want to see service.?” he said. “You want 
to see the world .? You want your chance .? If you 
will let me pay you in the meantime by giving you 
what you want in that way I will take this as a loan.” 

“ It belongs to you,” Harry returned, but Hamil 
clung to his point and won it. 


CHAPTER X. 

There was a horse for sale in a Turkish village on 
the green bank of the Maritza, and Harry Wynne 
was the intending purchaser. The news that a bar- 
gain was being negotiated in the street ran like fire 
from house to house. Venerable greybeards flamed at 
the tidings ; toddling infancy came gamesomely out to 
witness the transaction ; cripples on crutches dragged 
themselves painfully towards the scene ; a wild, surg- 
ing mob gathered about the purchaser, the salesman, 
and the horse, and everybody harangued everybody 
else in an indistinguishable hubbub. There were 
seconds of silence in the din, and these were utilized 
by the respective bargainers. The salesman, blessed 
by the Prophet — he had led a holy and self-denying 
life and called his neighbours to witness to the fact — 
had caught a horse which had run riderless from a 
troop of the accursed Muscov cavalry. He was a gem, 
a pearl, a miracle, a wonder among horses. Never since 
the days of Mohammed's milk-white steed had such an 
animal blessed the sight of man. As an upshot of all 


CHAP. X.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES 117 

this, he wanted a hundred pounds for him. The young 
Englishman's interpreter having anathematized him 
as an extortioner, a Jew, and the son of a Jew, gravely 
offered twopence, whereupon the intending vendor 
spat, and gave him over to Tophet and the fire and 
darkness of the unbeliever. This done, the salesman 
professed his poverty, but for which nothing should 
have induced him to treat a moment longer with a 
wretch so ignominious and contemptible. He would 
take fifty pounds Turkish for the steed, though he 
vowed before heaven that it was a robbery of the 
orphan. The interpreter eyed the beast, and described 
him in terms of such scathing contumely, that the 
crowd yelled in mingled delight and opprobrium. 
Then he offered fourpence. The contending parties 
separated, spitting backward on the ground towards 
each other, and objurgating fiercely. Then the crowd 
entered into active participation in the affair, and 
every man, woman, and child in it went stark, staring, 
raving mad. Vendor and purchaser were dragged 
together, and faced each other with the bitterest up- 
braidings. The salesman would take twenty — not a 
piastre less, upon his soul ! The purchaser would 
waste a single pound upon the brute. Beyond that 
the compulsion neither of fire nor sword should carry 
him. The interest of the crowd became, if possible 
more intense. The first ornamental sparring flourishes 
were over, and the combatants were coming to close 
quarters. The vendor fell to fifteen, the interpreter 
rose to two. Then the vendor fell to fourteen, and 
the buyer rose to three. Then came offers of twelve 
and four, and there the purchaser stood like a rock 


ii8 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

At every novel offer the contending parties severed 
and shook the dust off their feet against each 
other, but the crowd dragged them back again and 
insisted on the conclusion of the bargain. It was 
struck at last at seven, amidst a whirl of confu- 
sion which Bedlam broken loose could scarcely equal. 
Vendor and interpreter alike were filled with a sacred 
joy. The owner of the quadruped had fixed his 
mind on six, and the deputy buyer would have risen 
to eight. Each felt that he had outreached the other, 
and was happy. 

In this wise our young adventurer was mounted. 
It was his first experience of a Turkish bargain, and 
for a while he was happier in the thought that the 
bargain had not led to bloodshed than in the business 
result of it, though an hour’s trial made that seem 
eminently satisfactory. There was such a change in 
the lad already that his late companions of the Five 
Year-Old would hardly have recognised him. The 
fierce sun and free air had tanned his face and hands 
to a deep brown. The Circassian cap of astrakhan 
hid his fair curls, and he wore a close-fitting tunic of 
the native cloth — the brown, fibrous stuff they call 
shyak. 

On the day after his purchase of the horse, the 
Circassian regiment to which by Hamil’s influence 
he was attached as volunteer received its marching 
orders and started northward, its band raising 
inspiring music. They passed fair tracts of peaceful 
country where over broad flat pastures the cattle 
grazed, and the villagers drove their teams afield, and 
wide acres of maize, with its white hair waving in the 


X.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 119 

summer wind, a sight of beauty. Then they came to 
the grass-grown desert between the Rhodopes and 
the Balkans, and so on to the stern fastnesses of the 
hills. Sometimes the whole body of men would 
dawdle listlessly along, and at others would go thun- 
dering along some rocky and precipitous pass at the 
wildest break-neck pace, as if the whole tribe had 
suddenly gone mad. When they got a chance to 
worry anything they took it, and bands of a dozen 
or so were continually prowling off to chase some 
domestic creature with hideous howls and whoopings 
and a storm of shots. They were provided with the 
Winchester repeating-rifle, and it was a never-ending 
joy to fire at anything. The small birds on the 
telegraph wires were a great attraction to them, and 
when the wires had been cut in half-a-dozen places 
the officer in command entered his first protest by 
hanging a brace of his men, and so put a stop to the 
pet amusement of the rest. 

To the mind of untravelled youth the life was 
glorious, but there were many hours when the past 
lay heavily on the adventurer’s spirit. There was 
never a waking hour in which his mind was absent 
from Inthia. She was his star of hope, and burned 
always with a pure and steadfast lustre. He was 
going where deeds of heroism must needs be as 
plentiful as blackberries, and was resolute, with a 
boy’s unthinking fearlessness, to do his share of them. 
He dreamed no end of dreams, and Inthia was the 
life and centre of them all. He was going to win 
fame and pluck back honour at the sword’s point, at 
the cannon’s mouth, in whatsoever dreadful conflict 


120 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


his mind could picture. The savage band thundered 
along whooping and shrieking in mere exuberance of 
animal spirits, and he would ride in their midst with 
teeth hard set, and every nerve and muscle rigid, 
sweeping in fancy towards the enemy’s batteries. 

The regiment rode in any order which happened to 
please its individual members. There was a discipline 
of a sort, no doubt, but to the English eye it was in- 
visible. Men wandered off from the track as they 
pleased, scoured the adjacent country, and caught up 
their fellows sometimes after an interval of three or 
four days. Scattered twos or threes would gallop on 
ahead, and secure a day’s idle freedom before the 
main body caught them. 

One day at blazing noon the regiment came up 
to an old Turk who sat alone on the hill-side over- 
looking Orkhanie. He gave them news. Gourko’s 
Cossacks had passed by in flying bands, and the 
Bulgarian villagers had grown insolent at the sight of 
them. Two Circassians had been shot that morning 
at the entrance to a Christian village near at hand. 
The commanding officer mounted the old man behind 
one of his troopers, and bade him act as guide. The 
whole body deviated from the main route, and made 
for the village where their comrades had been mur- 
dered. Harry strung himself together in expectation 
of a piece of swift and stern justice-work, but he was 
prepared for nothing so murderously swift and stern 
as he was doomed to see. The village lay in a little 
sheltered basin of the hills, and the word was given 
to surround it. That was all well and good, and it 
was proper that the criminals should be allowed no 


X.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


121 


chance of escape. But when a signal-shot was fired, 
and the whole circle plunged narrowing towards its 
centre, with rifles pealing everywhere, making a ring 
of fire and death about the place, Harry’s heart flushed 
with a passionate but impotent resentment against 
this barbarism of vengeance. Shrieking women bore 
their children hither and thither about the village 
street. As he rode, he saw one drop and lie still. 
He sighted Hamil at a little distance and put his 
horse at his best speed across the broken ground to 
intercept him, crying out that this was infamous, and 
a murder of the innocents. He crossed the line of 
his comrades at his own risk, and a ball sent his 
kalpack flying. He rode on bareheaded, not know- 
ing how narrowly he had escaped. They were in the 
village, among the ricks, the little open threshing 
spaces and the tumble-down houses ; rifles cracking 
and ringing, and sabres gleaming everywhere. The 
wretched villagers rushed hither and thither help- 
lessly, and were shot or sabred as they ran. In the 
crowded melee a sudden face flashed on him, white 
with terror and despair. He knew it in half a heart- 
beat, and dashed between it and the Circassian trooper 
charging with uplifted sword. The horses met, and 
shocked, and fell together. Somehow Harry was 
on his feet again, sabre in hand, standing before 
the man he recognised. He shouted “ Inglese ! 
Inglese!” It was the only word he knew that 
could be of any service. There were a dozen 
murderous faces round him, full of the lust of blood, 
when Hamil burst amongst them, calling out to his 
blackguards to withdraw. They were in no hurry to 


122 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


obey him, and it was not until he had struck amongst 
them with his riding-whip, rating them like a pack 
of hounds, that they dropped back. 

“ What brings you here ? '' he asked. 

“ I am an Englishman,” Ronald Morton answered. 
“ I am travelling for pleasure.” 

He looked so little like it that the Circassian 
laughed aloud. The man was struck through and 
through with abject terror, and shook so from head 
to foot that he could hardly speak. His face was of 
a gruesome gray, and when he had given his answer 
his lips went on without his will babbling inarticulate 
sounds. 

“ Go back into that hut,” said Hamil, “ I will give 
you a guard.” 

Morton obeyed as quickly as his shaking legs 
allowed, and Harry, in the effort to follow, felt his 
left leg collapse beneath him, and rolled over. The 
tumult of slaughter was still going on, but Hamil 
dismounted, and caught him by the arm. 

“ You are hurt } ” he said. ‘‘ You are hit ? ” 

‘‘ No,” he answered, ‘‘ my horse fell with me. My 
leg is numbed, that is all.” 

Hamil helped him into the hut, and set a brace 
of malcontent ruffians at the door. These gentry 
robbed of the pleasures of murder, sat growling, but 
did not dare to disobey. 

Morton, finding himself in safety, began to gather 
courage, and at first vapoured tremendously about 
his own coolness under trying circumstances. By 
and by he grew collected enough to see that silence 
was his best stronghold, and so took refuge in it. 


X.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


123 


When he had altogether recovered his wits he began 
to think of his preserver, whom he thanked fluently. 

‘‘ Let us have a look at things,” said Harry, “ I’m 
afraid something’s broken. Help me off with my 
boots.” 

Morton helped him, delicately and carefully, but 
the operation caused excruciating pain. So far 
as they could discover nothing was broken, but the 
limb was already puffed and swollen, and at the best 
that could be hoped for there was no movement 
possible for it for some weeks to come. 

The infernal noise outside had died away, and ex- 
cept for an occasional word of command or a shout 
from one comrade to another, the clatter of hoofs and 
the jingling of bridle and arms, quiet was restored, 
when Hamil dismounted at the door of the hut, 
and entered. He knelt down and examined the 
injured limb with a skilful and practised touch. 

“ I am afraid you’re on your back for a month, my 
young friend,” he said, when he had completed his 
examination. ‘‘You have a severe sprain, and I 
should say the coating of the muscle is broken.” 

He left the hut, and returning in a minute or two 
with a garment of white cotton, he tore it into strips 
soaked them in cold water, and bandaged the injured 
limb. 

“ We shall be at Orkhanie this afternoon,” he said, 
“ shall I send a litter for you ? ” 

The patient groaned at the fancy. 

“ Leave me for a day or two,” he said, “ I shouldn’t 
care about being moved just yet. I don’t think I 
could stand it.” 


124 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


‘‘ If I leave you for a day or two/’ said Hamil, “ I 
may leave you for good and all until the campaign is 
over. We are going northward.” 

Even this prospect did not persuade Harry to allow 
himself to be moved. After the scene of that morn- 
ing in the midst of which he still lay, his desire for 
a career of glory in company with the Tchirkasse had 
undergone serious modification. He was as willing 
to fight as ever, but he had British notions of warfare, 
and they did not include the wholesale murder of 
women and children. 

“ You had better leave me here,” he said, ‘‘ I would 
rather not be moved.” 

‘‘You will have a crowd of Bulgarian dogs here 
when we have gone away,” said Hamil, “and it may 
go badly with you.” 

“ I am friendly with the people,” said Morton. 
*‘They know me. I speak their language. There 
will be no danger.” 

“You, sir,” replied the Circassian, “appear to be 
courageous in danger’s absence.” 

Morton accepted this sneer in silence. After what 
he had seen that morning a Circassian officer with his 
men behind him was the last man in the world on 
whom to retaliate for a mere insult. 

The men were marshalling outside, and were 
getting ready to renew their march. Hamil went 
outside for a moment, and hastily returning with 
arms, and with the news that both Wynne’s horse 
and Morton’s were safely tethered at the door, shook 
hands, kissed his young friend on both cheeks, and 
went his way. 


X.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


125 


“If there should be a doctor at Orkhanie/' be said, 
turning at the door, “ I will send him to you. When 
you recover, follow us. I will leave word of our route 
at every halting place along the line. Good-bye, and 
God be with you.” 

All on a sudden there was a mighty clatter out- 
side, and the regiment moved away. The two men 
listened in silence. The noise travelled further and 
further, growing fainter and more faint, until at last 
it died. 

Harry’s first sentiments towards his newly re- 
covered acquaintance were not favourable. Being 
himself endowed with courage it came natural 
to him to despise cowardice, and he felt that for 
the sake of his own internal sense of dignity he 
would face the inevitable when it should come his 
way in a more manly fashion than Morton had 
adopted. 

But if Morton were a poor warrior he turned out 
to be a most kindly and indefatigable nurse, and it 
is not easy to go on despising a man who is doing 
you momentary kindnesses. He seemed to know by 
instinct when the bruised limb wanted easing by a 
change of posture, and the movement was always 
so delicately effected that it caused no pain. It 
appeared that Morton had hired the hut he lived in, 
and had been there long enough to surround himself 
with a fair imitation of home comfort. He had 
all manner of tinned and potted provisions and con- 
serves, and a store of bottles containing different 
sorts of beverages, from the fiery mastica to the harm - 
less vishnap, the syrup of the sour wild cherry. This 


126 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


last made an excellent invalid drink, and it was so 
kindly proffered that Harry could not do less than 
feel grateful for it. Then Mr. Morton had such 
winning, caressing, and feminine ways that it seemed 
unfair to expect courage from him. Before the day 
was over the two were on intimate terms, and Harry 
had begun to feel quite kindly towards the graceful 
weakling whose life he had saved. On his side the 
weakling was not deficient in acknowledgment, and 
his assiduity and tenderness as a nurse would have 
been notable under any conditions. 

When all had been silent for some three or four 
hours Morton found courage to steal outside, and 
searched the deserted houses for milk and eggs. He 
returned laden, and brought dreadful news of the 
scene the village street displayed. There were a 
hundred bodies there, he declared, all horribly muti- 
lated. His staring eyes and blanched face gave 
emphasis to his narrative, but he felt the danger over, 
and busying himself about a little cooking apparatus 
heated by a spirit lamp he seemed rapidly to recover 
his nervous tone. He made a capital omelette, and 
Harry ate his share of it with fair appetite. His 
limb pained him constantly, and wore him with 
fatigue, so that an hour after his meal he fell uneasily 
asleep. 

Morton, for an hour, sat watching by him, rolling 
and smoking cigarettes, and sipping a cup of 
Turkish coffee with a sybarite air. He looked a full 
score of times at his companion to assure himself of 
the soundness of his slumber, and at length crossing 
the room on tip-toe, opened a canvas hold-all which 


X.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


127 


lay in one corner of the room, and drew from it 
an English newspaper which he unfolded with a 
rustling caution. He hunted here and there 
among its columns for a special paragraph, and 
read with frequent glances towards the sleeper. 
The paragraph was headed “ A Ruined Career,’^ 
and ran thus : 

“ The whole country will have learned with regret 
of the disgrace which has been brought upon one of 
the most ancient and honourable of the great families 
of England by the folly and extravagance of its 
youngest member. Mr. Harry Wynne, the great 
grandson of the venerable Earl ofBridgebourne, is still 
supposed to be abroad in hiding. His family are 
unaware of his whereabouts, and the warrant issued 
for his apprehension at the instance of Mr. Butterfield 
the well-known jeweller of Conduit Street, remains 
unserved. The last heard of the culprit was at Monte 
Carlo, where he committed a wanton and outrageous 
assault upon Mr. Herbert Whale, a gentleman well 
known in sporting circles, whose only concern in the 
matter was, that he was expected to give evidence 
with regard to some of the youthful criminal’s mis- 
doings. It is now regarded as improbable in the last 
degree that Mr. Wynne will present himself to answer 
the charges that are made against him. It would be 
obviously unjust to assume his guilt as a certainty, 
but it is evident also that only the darkest con- 
struction can be put upon his continued evasion of 
justice.'’ 

Morton, having read this thrice over, put the journal 
back into its old place and sat musing. 


128 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

He would be very useful,” so his thoughts ran. 

The rest are such hulking blackguards. Such 
clumsy imitations of gentlemen. This fellow is well- 
bred to the finger-tips. He has courage, too, and one 
superb advantage. He looks as straight as a die. 
You would almost have to believe him if he lied to 
you, even though you knew it. That’s a valuable 
characteristic. . . . He mightn’t want to join at first. 
It’s pretty certain he wouldn’t. He has come out 
here to get knocked on the head, and put an end to 
his disgraces that way ; but a month with that leg 
may do something towards taming him. I must try 
him gradually. I want a trustworthy helpmate pretty 
badly. I think he’ll do ; and, besides that, I like the 
lad.” 

The long day dragged onward to its close. The 
ghastly and oppressive silence which reigned outside 
lay as heavily on Harry’s mind as on Morton’s. He 
was slightly feverish with the pain of the bruised 
limb, and sometimes on the stillness sounded voices 
which he knew were far away. In his half-dreaming, 
half-waking state bores came and chattered weary 
nonsense in his hearing. Lady McCorquodale and 
Lord Hounes made a call of ceremony with Mr. 
Butterfield, and laboured to prove to the fat Greek 
who presided over the roulette-table that to mark his 
numbers by cutting dowm living people was a wanton 
waste of human life. He was quite aware through 
all this that he lay with a sprained leg in a Bulgarian 
hut, but none the less the inconsequent rubbish of his 
dreams wearied him with an unutterable boredom. 
Then, whether it were by some temporary cessation 


X.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


129 


of his pain he could not tell, but a feeling of balmy 
ease and rest came to him. He could not tell, either, 
whether the thought of Inthia brought that sense of 
ease, or its cool refreshment brought her to his mind. 
But Inthia was surely there. Her eyes looked at 
him with infinite soft pity, the purest trust shone in 
those kind orbs. He moved his hands towards her, 
and she was gone. It was night time, and the glare 
of burning houses in the street cast a wild, waving 
network of light and shadow on the wall. Morton 
was stretched upon a rug on the floor at a little 
distance from him, and at times he could dimly see 
his sleeping face. He carried in an inner pocket the 
last lines Inthia had written to him. Every motion 
pained him, but he managed to draw the letter from 
its hiding-place. He kissed it many times, and it 
was only when his lips tasted the salt of his own 
tears that he knew that he was crying. He had had 
his fits of hopefulness, when he was going to conquer 
calumny, and ride home rejoicing, with his fair fame 
redressed, but for the most part the current of his 
thoughts had set more and more determinately in 
another direction. Now it seemed not merely hope- 
less, but criminal, to strive to ally her life with that of 
a man disgraced and lost as he was. He bade her 
good-bye in his heart. He would efface himself for 
good and all. She should never hear more of him, 
and would fancy that he was dead. He spoke his 
mward farewells so earnestly that his passion seemed 
to draw her near to him. They stood heart to heart 
spirit to spirit. She would have no farewell, but he 
said it for her sake. 


K 


130 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. x. 


“ Forgive me and forget me ! I shall love you for 
ever, but there is no meeting for us any more. Good- 
bye, dear love. Be happy ! ” 

What can words say to speak the swelling, aching 
heart ? 


CHAPTER XI. 

It came out that before the arrival of the Cir- 
cassian regiment there had been a considerable exodus 
from the village. The high-spirited Christians who 
had shot the two Tchirkas from an ambush had been 
moved to that emprise by the belief that their victims 
were unaccompanied. Learning suddenly that ven- 
geance was close behind, they gave warning to such 
of their fellow villagers as were within easy reach, 
and some score or more of them took refuge together 
in the hills. When they judged all to be quiet and 
safe again they came back timidly to reconnoitre. 
Finding the village street strewn with dead, they 
raised a terrible wailing, and for a while were more than 
half disposed to cut the throat of the solitary survivor 
and that of his companion ; but being at length 
repersuaded that neither the one nor the other was 
responsible for the attack, they buried their dead in 
quiet, and left the Englishmen to themselves. They 
kept a trembling watch for the reappearance of the 
enemy, and held themselves in readiness to fly and 
hide at any moment. 


K 2 


132 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Ronald Morton continued his friendly offices, and 
since the utmost skill could have done little better for 
Harry than to leave him to absolute repose he suc- 
ceeded as well with his patient as a professional nurse 
could have done. Mr. Morton was in a very curious 
corner, and though he had greatly more courage in 
diplomacy than in warfare, he did not care at that 
time to risk himself in any centre of civilisation. 
The whole civilised world was up in arms against 
him. More than one Government was offering a 
heavy reward for the apprehension of William Reid^ 
and Ronald Morton felt such an interest in William 
Reid’s welfare as no man of his calibre ever felt 
except for the great Number One. As it happened, 
Ronald Morton was known in passing to a mere 
score of people — the little Bulgarian bride and her 
family included — but William Reid had an almost 
world-wide reputation, which just at present he was 
very far from enjoying. He was sorely in want of a 
companion in his enforced solitude. That was a 
question of sentiment. He wanted also a well-bred, 
gentlemanly confederate. That was a question of 
business. He was one of the adroitest scoundrels in 
the world, and even in his retirement was full of 
schemes and plans. In the person of Harry Wynne, 
proscribed and hunted. Providence seemed to have 
sent him companion and confederate in one. He 
thought it unlikely that he would be put to much 
trouble in securing him, but caution was one of his 
most rooted habits, and he played so lightly round 
his theme as he approached it that Harry had no 
suspicion of him. 


XL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


133 


He allowed the English newspaper to lie about 
in his companion’s reach, and once or twice saw it 
taken languidly up and glanced at. He himself, from 
sheer vacuity, had read its very advertisements, and 
could tell at a look on what item of intelligence the 
sufferer’s eye rested when he scanned the paper. 
There was no other reading matter within miles, and 
Ronald Morton bided his time with patience. Wynne 
was certain, sooner or later, to come upon the para- 
graph which concerned him, and Morton’s only fear 
was lest it should be lighted upon in his absence, and 
he should be unable to judge of its immediate effect. 
He watched his companion as a cat watches a mouse, 
but, as fortune would have it, though Harry was 
constantly taking up the old newspaper, looking at it 
and tossing it away again, his eye never lighted on 
the lines which concerned himself. Mr. Morton 
determined therefore to bring things to a head. He 
himself took up the newspaper, and read the accusing 
paragraph with a beautifully managed start of surprise 
and a stare of stricken wonder at his comrade. He 
walked up and down the room in so perplexed and 
disturbed a fashion that Harry was impelled to ask 
him what the matter was. 

Mr. Morton, suddenly gone cold as an iceberg and 
prim as an old maid, folded the paper so as to bring 
the paragraph into prominence, and made a show of 
offering it. 

“ I have no right to pry into your concerns,” he 
said, arresting himself, ‘‘ but will you kindly tell me if 
you are the grandson of the Earl of Bridgebourne ? 

“ I am,” said Harry. “ What about it ? ” 


134 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Mr. Morton placed the old journal in his hands, 
dinting the paragraph with his thumb nail, and 
retired to a corner of the hut, where he sat down with 
an air of doubting watchfulness. 

Harry read the lines, and made a furious effort to 
struggle into a sitting posture, but fell back, groaning. 

“ That ! ” he cried, beating the paper with his 
clenched fist as it lay on the floor beside him, “ that 
is what I was ass enough to come away from ! That 
is what I have led the world to think ! The scoundrels ! 
The villains ! The liars ! '' 

What with rage and shame and the pain he had 
given himself, he could say no more. He lay clawing 
at the paper with his right hand, clenched his teeth 
tightly together, and stared blindly at the roof 

Mr. Morton drew the clumsy three-legged stool 
he sat on close to his companion's side, and stooping 
over him, laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder. 

‘‘Tell me all about it, Wynne,” he said, in a kindly, 
sympathetic voice. “ I think I know an honest man 
when I see one.” 

The story was rankling in Harry's mind anew, and 
it was a relief to tell it. 

“ About nine months ago I lost about three hundred 
pounds at ^carte one night at the Five-Year-Old 
Club. I am not proud of myself now for having 
played beyond my means, and I suppose I pretty 
well deserved everything that came out of it. I 
found a man who did a bill for me at three months, 
and when the time came I couldn’t meet it. I tried 
my honest best, but he was in an awful hole himself, 
and couldn't wait ; or, at any rate, he said so.” 


XL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


135 


“ Who was your obliging friend ? asked Morton, 
smilingly. His companion was taking him on to 
familiar ground. 

“ A man named Whale. Herbert Whale.” 

Oh ! ” said Morton, smiling more broadly. “ The 
fellow they call Hump ? He’s a very nice man. 
Champagne and cigars, eh } Five hundred per cent, 
per annum.” 

“ You know him ? ” cried Harry. 

‘‘ I know of him,” said Morton. “ Who has knocked 
about London who doesn’t ? Shall I finish your stor)?* 
for you ? ” 

Do you think you can ? ” said Harry. 

“ I can try. Let us suppose that Mr. Whale is very 
desperately pressed for money. He knows a jeweller 
who will sell you anything, and wait until the crack of 
doom for payment. A most obliging fellow. Your 
uncle will take the jewels, Butterfield won’t ask more 
than thirty per cent, over their value. And when 
you’ve been innocently guilty of illegal pawning, Mr. 
Whale and Mr. Butterfield will put the screw on your 
noble relatives. Was Captain Heaton in it ? Ah ! I 
thought so. He’s got the whip-hand of the other pair. 
It’s an old trick, my boy. It’s been played over and 
over again. It seldom fails. They seem to have made 
a hash of it in your case, but they did very well with 
young Lascelles and young Crawford last year, and I 
suppose they have somebody else in tow by this time.” 

Harry did not stop to inquire how this intimate 
knowledge of affairs fitted with Morton’s earlier aspect 
of wounded coldness. He was mainly occupied in 
savouring a new bitterness. He had been gulled 


136 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap 

by a device so stale that a stranger hearing half the 
story, could fill in the rest for him. He had known 
himself a victim, and had now to confess himself a 
greenhorn, which, a greenhorn, is as unpleasant a 
thing as can be well imagined. 

“You should never have come away,” continued 
Morton, working towards his own purpose. “ A 
clever sblicitor would have pulled you through in 
safety. They dare not have fought the case. But in 
running away you have thrown up everything. If the 
case went before a jury now they would convict to a 
certainty. You’re expatriated for life, and that’s the 
plain English of it. You dare not show up again.” 

“No said Harry. “As soon as ever I can cross 
a horse again, back I go. I’ll have it out with these 
scoundrels and tell the truth whatever it may 
cost me.” 

“ That’s all very well,” said Mr. Morton, pursuing 
his role of man of the world, “ if you had any 
witnesses to prove anything for you, but I’ll warrant 
that Messrs. Whale and Butterfield were too smart 
to give you that chance. You saw them alone. You 
have no evidence of their complicity, and Fll bet 
what you like that Whale asked you to tear up the 
bill when it came back into your hands. Did he } ” 

“ Of course he did.” 

“ Of course he did. And you obliged him ? of 
course, again. That bill was your only bit of evidence, 
and you threw it away. Before you talk of going 
back again, look things in the face. You’ll go into 
the dock to be tried for fraud. The witnesses against 
you are of course the people who bring the charge. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


137 


1 XI.] 

I You have no witnesses to call. Your own mouth is 
■ closed by the law, and you are not allowed to say a 
’ word. Whatever your solicitor says for you is tainted 
I and not worth a straw. You get at least a year, and 
' probably two. You have completed your ruin, and 
: the prison brands you for life. Stay where you are, 
Wynne. Stay where you are.” 

There was no doubting that the advice was 
eminently practical and wise, and there was little 
doubt, if any, in Harry's mind that the programme 
his companion laid down would be fulfilled to the letter 
if he returned to England. He made no answer, and 
the theme was allowed to drop. Morton stooped and 
patted him softly on the shoulder, and went away 
with an admirable delicacy into the open air. 

The theme was buried, but its ghost walked in 
broad daylight. Morton turned cynic in his speech, 
and railed against the world. The worthlessness of 
reputation became a favourite theme with him. 

“ If I were wrongfully suspected and proscribed as 
you have been,” he said, “ I believe I should be tempted 
to turn adventurer. Fd take it out of the beggars 
somehow. It should go hard if I didn't better the 
things they brought against me.” 

This, as a mere explosion of sympathetic wrath, 
was passable. Harry had no dream of its being any- 
thing more than that, and so let it go by without 
response. Morton let the seed lie, but he had no idea 
on how stony a ground it had fallen. Even his most 
friendly sympathiser could hardly deny that Harry 
Wynne had been a fool, but a conscious temptation 
to dishonour had never so much as presented itself to 


135 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

him. He was honest to the bone, and could no 
more help it than he could help being six feet high. 
The subtle Morton plied all the tools of his agricul- 
ture, threw his seed broadcast, and watched for signs j 
of growth. None came. 

He was extremely open and confidential, as he 
could very well afford to be, since he carefully 
eliminated all truth from the statements he made 
concerning himself. He described familiarly that airy 
Kekewich in Cheshire which Harry Wynne could not 
remember to have heard of. Harry grew intimate 
with the place, and with its inhabitants. He made 
acquaintance with the excellent Morton senior, a 
model country squire, now lying in the churchyard 
of quiet Kekewich by the side of his admirable wife. 
The narrator could only just remember his mother, 
and their common early orphanage was a bond 
between the historian and the listener. All this time 
his devotion to his suffering comrade was really 
surprising. He manufactured a rough but stalwart 
crutch, by the aid of which in a week or two Harry 
began to get about again. He drew his comrade out 
in the long dull days, and found a hundred devices 
for passing the time. He marked a square of the old 
newspaper for a draught board, and they played on 
it with gold and silver coins. He introduced another 
amusement which Harry found attractive. He was a 
remarkable penman, and could imitate the signatures 
of scores of eminent people. He set his companion 
to work at this, and in that way they wiled away 
many an hour which would otherwise have been 
listless and unoccupied. Napoleon’s tremendous 


XL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


139 


autograph, Captain Marryat’s copper-plate signature, 
Carlyle’s grim crabbed fist, Byron’s sprawl, and 
Dickens’s self-proclamatory flourish, these and count- 
less others appeared upon paper at the bidding of 
Mr. Morton’s skilful fingers. The invalid’s fancy was 
quite enchanted by this new art. He pursued it 
vigorously, and to his own astonishment discovered 
that he had great aptitude for it. Ronald Morton 
began to have hopes of his pupil, and if he could but 
once have broken through that unconscious hedge of 
natural honesty, would have congratulated himself 
most highly. 

He wanted a gentleman for his purposes, and was 
judge enough of what he wanted to know that he had 
found it in the youngest representative of the house 
of Bridgebourne. The boy had an undeniable air of 
distinction, and it was a pity to waste such material 
as he owned on a career of honesty. It was a pity 
too that the look of honour that he wore should have 
been actually accompanied by the real thing. To 
disarm suspicion is the rogue’s best game, and 
Mr. Morton himself was always conscious of a little 
difficulty in it. Harry Wynne would have found his 
own ingratiating airs superfluous. 

When the two companions got to imitating each 
other’s signatures, Morton grew facetious about the 
business values of the art he taught. Harry met his 
jests with an honest laugh, which never failed to dis- 
concert him, though he always hid his discomfiture. 
They had been together nearly a month before 
Harry’s stolid, stupid honour finally blunted such 
implements of moral agriculture as Morton dared to 


140 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


bring to bear upon him. Morton gave him up at last, 
seeing clearly that there was no hope of a confederacy 
between them. 

In the meantime war and the rumours of war were 
thickening about them, though lying off the one 
main road of the country, they saw nothing. Morton 
had already had enough of warlike experiences to last 
him for a lifetime, and was eager to find a safer 
hiding place. He talked of pushing across country 
to Dalmatia, and induced Harry to give him a half 
promise of companionship. The sprained leg still 
made movement painful, but its uses were rapidly 
returning, and in a day or two he hoped to be quite 
himself again. 

They woke up one morning to a scene of great 
excitement. The surviving score of villagers were 
wild with joy at the arrival of a handful of Cossacks, 
who naturally and wisely proclaimed themselves the 
advance guard of the main body, though as a matter 
of fact they were playing the rashest roving game, 
and had no supports within seventy miles. Gourko's 
cavalry was rather fond of this sort of knight-errantry, 
and perhaps found it easier and safer to practise in a 
country which has but one road in it than it would be 
in any more civilised land. There was not a woman 
left in the village, nor a child ; but the residue of the 
inhabitants turned out in clumsy festal style, their 
great bearskin hats ornamented with ribbons, and 
cockades of rags pinned To their sheepskin breasts. 
The new arrivals ate and drank of their best, and 
bounced and swaggered as only this kind of military 
adventurer can bounce and swagger. Overwhelming 


XI.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 141 

forces were close behind them, the whole country was 
in their hands. Suleiman had been swept away at the 
Shipka ; a hundred thousand of their men were massed 
at Teliche ; the war was practically and gloriously 
over. Bulgaria was free of the Turkish yoke, the 
-j treaty of peace would be signed in a fortnight, and 
" the little Father was coming down the road in peace- 
" fill, glorious military procession in a day or two. 
Every Balkan villager heard these fine tidings at one 
time or other during the war, and most of them lived 
to wish that the news had come later and when it 
was nearer fulfilment. 

Harry and Mr. Ronald Morton were too wise in their 
generation to say anything of the Circassian company 
in which one of them had arrived. They accepted 
^ the chances of war, which like poverty makes one 
acquainted with strange bedfellows, and gave the 
arrivals a cordial welcome. The lieutenant in com- 
mand, being pretty sick of a seven weeks’ diet of 
black bread, onions, and dirty water, fell on to 
Morton’s potted luxuries with gusto, and vowed him- 
self delighted to have met so charming and hospitable 
a companion. Mr. Morton had provisioned himself 
as if for a siege of long duration, but the Cossack 
lieutenant’s appetite was abnormal, and made visible 
inroads on his stores. The brandy and tobacco gave 
him supreme contentment, and when the meal was 
crowned with coffee, he declared himself in Paradise. 
He complimented the two English gentlemen on their 
courage in looking so closely at war without the 
combatant’s interest or compulsion, and Morton, 
whilst accepting his compliments, swore inwardly to 


142 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


have seen the last of it. He would mount and ride 
to-morrow for Zara, where sweet peace reigned, and 
the detective forces of Paris, London, and Vienna, 
were alike unknown. 

The day of rejoicing was wound up over a huge 
flaming pannikin of burned rum, to which the village 
world at large was invited. Sentries were posted, and 
the village went to sleep a little sounder than usual 
perhaps. The densest dark of night was over, and 
the first pale gray of dawn was in the air when a 
sudden clatter of horse hoofs in the street awoke 
Harry and his companion. 

“ What’s that } ” said Harry, stirring on his couch 
of rugs and skins. 

“ The Cossacks are off, ” said Morton. ‘‘ I never 
believed their vapouring. The Turks are in force 
close by.” 

“We’ll see them away anyhow,” said Harry. 
“That lieutenant’s a jovial bird, but unless his head 
is lined with cast-iron he carries a headache with 
him.” 

The inside of the hut was in dense darkness. The 
two arose, groping for their jackets which they had 
thrown off before going to sleep. Morton dragged 
the door open, and the village street showed dimly 
with half-a-dozen mounted figures in it thronging 
before the door. The two passed through into the 
gray dawn, and at that second there was a crackling 
roar of noise, a sudden belching of red light a hundred 
yards away, and Harry felt a vivid sting, followed by 
a strange numbness in his shoulder. Morton screamed 
and threw both arms into the air. He spun round 


XL] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


143 


two or three times with his hands writhing above his 
head, and fell back through the doorway of the hut. 
Harry, vainly striving to seize him, followed. There 
were quick recurrences of light and darkness in his 
eyes with every pulsation of the blood, a curious 
painless stupor fell on him, and he dropped on the 
body of'his companion. The sound of firing reached 
his ears again, and the mad clatter of hoofs which had 
answered to the first, died off into the distance. With 
that he lost all consciousness of his surroundings, and 
lay like a stone for an hour; 


CHAPTER XII. 


Mr. Hogan, M.D., was getting the loveliest practice 
in gunshot wounds, and was in a state of supreme 
contentment over half-a-dozen Cossacks, when a 
Turkish regular plucked him by the sleeve and 
pointed to the open doorway of a hut in the village 
street. 

Wan thing at a toime, and that done well, is a 
very good rule as many can tell,’' quoted Mr. Hogan, 
serenely ; but the swarthy little man insisted, and the 
medico rose from his knees and followed. “ Begad !” 
he broke out, ‘‘they’re English, the pair of ’em. 
Blackbeard’s business is over, and it’s a pity, for he’s a 
foine loikely-looking fellow. There’s life in the other 
chap, and whilst there’s life there’s hope they say. 
Let’s have a look at him. Why, you’re only a boy, 
me child ! Poor lad ! ' What brings ye out at this 
kind o’ foolery ? ” 

He busied himself with skilful hands about the 
wound. 

“’Tis ugly, but it might have been uglier. An 


CHAP. XII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 145 

inch makes all the difference. An inch and a half 
lower down and somebody would have gone into 
mourning. Ye’ll do for a while now. I’ll get back 
to my Cossacks. There’s nothing to be done for 
Blackboard, poor chap.” 

He held Morton’s hand in his own for a second 
and then dropped it and turned away, saddened 
whilst he might have counted three, and then brisk 
and alert again. 

The daylight grew broader, and a slanting ray of 
sunshine fell upon the feet both of th6 quick and the 
dead as they lay side by side. It climbed higher and 
higher, touched the knees, the waist, and at last shone 
full into the wounded man’s eyes. He woke from his 
swoon with a groan, and turning saw Morton lying 
close beside him, and knew at a glance that he was 
dead. His wide-open eyes were fixed and glassy, and 
he stared as if he saw some dreadful thing. 

Harry lay regarding him for a full minute. He 
himself was conscious of no great pain, but the dead 
man’s face was like a prophecy to him. 

It’s all over,” he said to himself. This is the 
end of it all.” 

A new faintness crept over him, and he took it for 
the coming of death. He had carried Inthia’s letter 
in his inner pocket ever since he had received it. His 
thoughts turned to it and to her. He groped for it 
feebly with a last farewell in his heart. He would die 
with Inthia’s letter in his hand, if he died in the act of 
getting it. In his feverish struggles he discovered 
that his left arm and his breast were bandaged. He 
wondered at this for a moment, but gave it no further 

L 


146 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

thought. Trying to force his uninjured right hand 
beneath the bandage, he discovered that the jacket he 
wore was not his own, and a single glance at the 
dead man beside him told him that in the hurry and 
the darkness each had seized the other’s garment. 
Morton lay on his right, and he could stretch a hand 
across his body. He struggled with a vigour which 
would have shown an onlooker how far away from 
death he really was, but he had no thought in his own 
mind except of a final farewell. He succeeded in 
seizing the letter, which lay alone, and drawing it 
from its hiding place he tried to raise it to his lips. 
His movements had disarranged the bandage and 
brought on a new flow of blood. He sank dizzily 
back into unconsciousness, and the letter dropped 
from his hand. 

Later on, he had a dreamlike knowledge of voices, 
motion, and the open air, but this faded, and for a 
week he knew nothing of the world. The first thing 
he woke to was a blue sky, with fanciful figures on it, 
which dazzled and darkened into singular colours, 
but always kept the same pattern. He was dimly 
interested in this phenomenon. He had never seen 
a sky like that before and was feebly tempted to laugh 
at it. In the very fact of that humorous percep- 
tion he fell asleep. When he woke to conscious- 
ness again somebody was feeding him. There was a 
yellow glow of lamplight in the room. He knew it 
for lamplight though he could not see its source ; but 
the same absurd blue sky with arabesque figures on 
it of various colours still winked at him, and dazzled 
out of darkness into light with a regular pulsation. 


xil] he fell among thieves. 147 

He was sleepily bent once more on laughter when 
his eyes cleared. The blue sky became a blue dis- 
tempered wall, and the strange arabesque of dark 
and light resolved itself into a vulgar Bulgarian 
mural decoration. 

‘‘ He’ll dew, Hogan ! ” said a voice. The valiant 
children of Erin were everywhere. 

“ Why wouldn’t he } ” another voice responded. 
“ He’s as lean as a rat, but he’s forty inches round the 
chest, and as hard as a nail from top to toe. He’s a 
noble constitution, and he’s taken it as if it was 
mother’s milk. Poor Wynne was nearly as fine a 
fellow. ’Twas a sad end for the poor lad.” 

The patient listened in a vague wonder. He 
seemed to know nothing and to care for nothing, 
and yet it was strange that they should speak of him 
as dead. The spoon came with a slow regularity to 
his lips, and trickled warm beef-tea between them. 
Why should they feed him if he were dead ? He 
had a feeble desire to laugh again at this ridiculous 
query. 

“ Me gad ! Hogan,” said the first voice, ‘‘ if you and 
me had run away from our debts we’d hardly have 
run out here.” 

‘‘ It’s excellent practice,” returned the other, so- 
lemnly, ‘‘ but ye can’t help thinking sometimes. 
There’s not a spot o’ whisky within five hundred 
moiles.” 

Then the patient went to sleep, having given no 
sign of being awake beyond his absorption of the 
nourishment offered him. He knew nothing of the 
lapse of time, and it seemed natural and in the 

L 2 


148 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


ordinary course of things that the same voices should 
sound in his ear again. He opened his eyes, and saw 
a bearded man in a fez, bending over him. He had 
never before beheld him, but he associated him with • 
the floating flavour of rum and tobacco which had 
touched the atmosphere of every conscious moment 
since he had received his wound. 

Come, young gentleman,” said the bearded man ; 
“ye’re beginning to pick up again. That was a 
glance of intelligence, Dick. What’s he saying > ” 
Hogan leaned over. The pale lips shaped a word. 

“ Morton ? Morton. That’s all right, me boy. We 
know who y’are. The papers are all right. They’ll 
be taken proper care of, and you’ll get them when the 
time comes. Ye’ll just take this,” — proffering a glass 
to his lips — “ and get to sleep again.” 

Some dim memory of the exchange of garments 
floated into Harry’s mind, and he guessed that his 
identity was confused with that of his dead com- 
panion. He could explain nothing now, and for the 
moment the error did not matter. 

Next day he was a little stronger, but not strong 
enough to talk above a whisper, and even then a 
mere word or two cost him so much effort that 
the doctor waved a hand for silence, and stole away 
on tiptoe. He heard himself spoken of as Morton, 
and was constantly addressed by that name. Once, 
in his , hearing, the two doctors talked of poor young 
Wynne, and the tragic ending of his trivial scrape. 
His mind began to work more clearly, and he under- 
stood that the mere change of garments had for the 
moment cost him his identity. Then he began to 


XII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


149 


think further, and to ask himself if it were worth 
while to disturb that arrangement. Here was 
an end of Harry Wynne, his troubles and disgraces. 
There was no more hope for him, no going back 
again no chance of offering an unspotted name to 
Inthia. He made no definite resolution. He could 
not as yet have denied the general supposition, even 
if he would ; and as the hours went by and in his 
waking moments he revolved things in his mind, he 
grew more and more certain that he did not desire 
to do so. 

He heard, while he was in this state of doubt, that 
the news of the death of ‘‘ poor young Wynne as 
everybody called him, had been wired home by the 
special correspondent of a great London daily, and 
he began to ask himself whether he could anyhow 
have found a more fortunate ending to his troubles. 
As for Inthia, she was never out of his thoughts, but 
she was utterly beyond his reach. She would grieve, 
but she would grow reconciled in time. She would 
marry Humphrey Frost, and be wealthy and dis- 
tinguished and in time happy. It was hard to think 
it, but the conviction forced itself more and more 
upon his mind. The chance of self-effacement thus 
thrust upon him was not lightly to be thrown away. 
Even honour seemed to call him to it. What right 
had he to hold Inthia to a fruitless bargain, to block 
up her way of life with his own miseries and mis- 
fortunes } 

In the first day of real convalescence the problem 
.solved itself. He allowed himself to be addressed 
as Morton, and answered consciously to the name, 


150 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap, xii. 

There was no going back from it now. Harry Wynne 
was dead and done with, and buried in the Balkan 
wilds ; but there was a living, eager-hearted and 
honourable youngster left behind him who had ac- 
cepted the alias and personality of one of the most 
brilliant criminals in Europe. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


In the May of the year 1882 the London newspapers 
made a tremendous boom about the arrival in town 
of that intrepid and distinguished Asiatic explorer 
Mr. Ronald Morton. Some of the journals gave bio- 
graphies of the celebrity, but were uncertain as to his 
early days. They were agreed that he had narrowly 
escaped death in the first skirmish he had witnessed 
in the Russo-Turkish war, that after his recovery 
from his wound he had done brilliant service as a 
special correspondent, and that, at the close of the 
campaign, he had set out upon a journey of amazing 
difficulty and danger. That fascinating volume, A 
Ride fro 7 n the Caspian to the Pacificy told the rest of 
Mr. Ronald Morton’s experiences. The returned 
wanderer was the hero of the hour, and his table was 
covered daily with bushels of letters and cards of 
invitation from distinguished and undistingtlished 
people. 

If the celebrated traveller had chosen to go into 
society and to get his lionizing over, it might have 


152 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


been with him as it is with so many others who be- 
come the objects of the world’s amiable caprices. He 
might have had his month or six weeks of wonder 
and adulation, and have got it over, falling back 
into the unnoticeable crowd. But the obstinate privacy 
in which he veiled himself gave a zest to curiosity 
and the whole town was agog at him. 

He had two rooms at the Westminster Hotel, 
and received nobody. His secretary opened for him 
and assorted the enormous correspondence which 
poured in daily, and a lithographed form, beginning 
with “ Mr. Ronald Morton regrets,” did duty for 
hundreds of answers. 

One morning his secretary laid before him, with 
a respectful grin a curious document. 

“ This came this morning, sir. It is very peculiar, 
and I thought you might like to see it.” 

Willie, we have missed you,” ran the curious epistle. 
‘‘One little pig went to market, and one little pig 
stayed at home, but where’s my share i Will you 
v/alk into my parlour ? G. C. G.” 

The celebrated traveller smiled, and dropped the 
letter. 

“Some madman,” he said lightly. 

“ Perhaps an error, sir, in enveloping letters,” sug- 
gested the secretary. “It looks as if it were addressed 
to an intimate acquaintance.” 

“ Well, yes,” the traveller allowed. “ It has that air.” 

The curious epistle went into the fire, with a hun- 
dred or two others, but next morning the secretary 
primly crumpling his lips from a smile, laid before 
his employer a second letter in the same handwriting. 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


153 


XIII.] 

“ Won't you walk into my parlour, William 't 
Gilead. Balm of Gilead. Might turn vitriolic,” 

Nothing doubting as yet that the bruit about his 
name had attracted the attention of some eccentric 
madman, the distinguished traveller confided this 
letter also to the flames. It was one of those lovely 
days in late spring when London casts off the mantle 
of ugliness it wears for nine-tenths of the year and 
clothes itself in beauty. The returned wanderer had 
nothing to do, knew nobody, and was alone in the 
midst of his fame. The thought of the sunlit green 
of the parks drew him with a pleasing compulsion, 
and he dressed for the open air. The light seam of 
a scar which ran transversely from the right side of 
the forehead to the left cheek made his sun-burned 
face remarkable without greatly disfiguring it, and 
the frank blue gray of his eyes contrasted strongly 
with the dark hue of his skin. The slim figure of youth 
had set and broadened and thickened through a life 
of rare toil and purity, and a crisp, full beard and 
heavy moustache lent a manly dignity to his face. 
He was attired like any other British gentleman, but 
his costume offered the thinnest of disguises. The 
dullest eye might see in him the signs of wild travel 
and perilous adventure. 

He was walking along the corridor, drawing a glove 
over one sunburned hand as he went, when a spare, 
bearded man threw a door open, and came out with 
so unguarded a vivacity that in half a second he and 
the great traveller were mingled in what looked like 
the fondest of embraces. 

“ Oi beg your pardon,” said the slight man, recover- 


154 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

ing the perpendicular, and bowing with an overflow- 
ing politeness. “ I saw ye too late to save 
meself.’’ 

‘‘ Hogan, old man,” said the traveller. 

“ Upon me word,” returned the other, scrutinizing 
him, ye have the advantage of me.” 

“ I dare say IVe changed. It's seven years since you 
pulled me out of the grave, Hogan. Take another 
look. Don't you remember me?” 

“ Begad ! ” cried the doctor, “ 'tfs Morton ! ” And 
there ensued a mighty handshaking. “Come into 
my room. I've a consulting chamber here. I’d just 
got my morning's work over and was away to see 
my patients. But they can wait. ^'Twas no wonder 
I did not know you. What a mass of a man ye’ve 
grown ! What's your chest measurement now ? Ye’ll 
have a drink now, won't ye ? Upon me soul. I'm 
delighted to meet ye. I've read your book. Why 
didn't ye tell me you were goin'? I’d have given a. 
leg to be with ye. When I came to that adventure* 
with the old Khan I thought I'd die with laughing. 
What's your beverage ? Put a name to it. Really, . 
upon me soul now, I am delighted.” 

The returned wanderer stood smiling down on him ; f 
holding both his hands, and every now and then ^ 
giving them a solid little shake. | 

“You're looking prosperous, Hogan.” 

“ Pros'prous, me boy,” returned the doctor, in a ^ 
whisper of almost awe-stricken secrecy. “ I'm a world's j 
wander to meself when I think about it. 'Twas the i 
gunshot practice did it all. Oi was staying with j 
a friend in the country, and as good luck would I 


XIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 155 

have it a burglar put a load o’ lead into Sir Miles 
Sinclair. D’ye know ’m ? A foine old English gentle- 
man, one of the olden toime. Ball traversed the 
shoulder, and lodged behind the shoulder-blade. I 
whipped it out with a penknife. Simplest operation in 
the world. Sir Miles swore I was the Napoleon of 
surgery, and called me in a month later to attend her 
ladyship. IVe half the aristocracy now, and no word 
of a lie about it. The very minute I ran into ye I was 
off to see Lady McCorquodale, sister of Lord Hounes, 
and the daughter of the Earl of Bridgebourne. She’s 
stayin’ at his lordship’s house in Eccleston Square, 
and my broom’s waiting at the door this minute.” 

The distinguished traveller’s heart leapt at these 
familiar names. He longed to ask questions, but gave 
no sign. 

“ Her leedyship was speakin’ about ye,” Hogan 
pursued, “only yesterday. Ye’re the talk of London. 
I told her that I’d had the good luck to pull ye 
through, and I was ass enough to forget that she 
was poor young Wynne’s great-aunt, and I spoke about 
the boy being killed in the same scrimmage. The 
old lady said nothing, but Miss Grey, that’s a kind 
of niece to her, gave me a warning glance, and after 
that I had the good taste to hold my tongue, and to 
change the subject. Everybody says ye’re hiding your- 
self. Why don’t ye go into society ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said the traveller, laughing rather 
joylessly. “ Perhaps I have been out of society so long 
that I might feel a little ill at ease and un-at-home in it.” 

“ That’s trew too,” said Hogan gravely, and rang 
the bell. “ We’ll have just a pint of Monopole 


156 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [char 

and a touch of angostura. Now ye can’t refuse me, 

I prescribe it. I know yoUr constitution from of old, 
and I know what’s good for ye. Ye won’t think me 
shabby in ordering a point ? ” said the good Celt. 
“ A point between two is an excellent thing of a 
morning, but a quart’s too much. There’s always 
duns and old chums, and that sort o’ people, wantin’ 
money of me, and if I had my share of a full bottle 
I’d be too generous.” 

The wanderer drank his wine sadly, though he 
made no show of sadness. He would have liked to 
question Hogan about Lady McCorquodale and her 
household, but he was unused to pretences, and 
before he had found a subterfuge the small bottle 
was empty, and the doctor was on his feet prepared 
to go. 

“ Ye’II dine with me to-noight } ” said Hogan, 

“ Won’t ye now ? We’ll have a talk about old times, 
and I’ll beat up one or two of the old boys. Seven sharp. 
Don’t fail me now. Ye’ll come, won’t ye ? ” 

“ Let us dine alone to-night, Hogan,” said the . 
traveller. “We shall have plenty to talk about, 
and I don’t care about a crowd.” 

It was agreed to, and they parted. The distin- 
guished wanderer sauntered into the park, thinking of . 
conversational devices by means of which he might 
lure on Hogan to talk of his patient and her com- 
panion. Inthia was Miss Grey still, it seemed, and 
had not married Humphrey Frost and his millions 
after all. He did not flatter himself that he knew . 
much of the great w'orld of human nature. He had 
elected to immuie himself in savage solitudes, and » 


XIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


157 


had given himself but little opportunity for study of 
the human heart. He was faithful to his old remem- 
brances, but questioning himself he found a reason 
for it. In long, lonely marches and companionless 
night bivouacs Inthia had been the constant comrade 
of his thoughts, and he had given her no rival. If 
he had mixed with the world things might have gone 
differently, and she had remained in it. Then again she 
had thought him dead this seven years. A girl of 
her position, her beauty, and prospective wealth could 
never be without suitors, and he thought it strange that 
she had not married long ago. He dismissed, as a sort 
of coxcombry, the thought which would intrude itself, 
that she had been faithful to his memory all these 
years. 

He had so long since resigned her, and had so 
completely obliterated himself that these thoughts 
were pensive rather than painful. The boyish ardour 
of desire had faded and he was contented to be alone. 
But none the less was she a saint to him, an object 
of worship, the embodiment of all that was true 
and pure and good and beautiful in womankind. 

Dinner-time came, and he was punctual to the hour. 
He played his conversational wiles, deliberately pre- 
pared, on Hogan. 

“ Poor young Wynne he, said, “ was in love with 
your patient's ward, I fancy.” 

“And that's no wonder,” Hogan answered, “though 
she could have been no more than a child when he knew 
her. She's not more than four-and-twenty now, and to 
my mind she’s just the loveliest woman in London.” 

Hogan's companion knew nothing of that master- 


158 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


piece of fiction, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, but 
without its guiding aid he recognized Beauty’s Dog 
in Hogan, M.D. Beauty’s Dog excites no jealousy 
in the mind of any lover, and when Hogan chanted 
Inthia’s praises Harry Wynne listened in* grave and 
tender assent. A crowd of Hogans might have 
worshipped her, and have awakened no sentiment 
except one of acquiescence in his mind. 

“ I wasn’t braggin’,” said Hogan, “ but I mentioned 
to her ladyship that I’d met ye this morning, and that 
you were going to dine with me this evening.” 

The excellent Hogan had indeed carried that 
intelligence everywhere. It was a feather of such 
exceptional brilliancy in his cap that it made quite 
a personage of him. That distinguished Ronald 
Morton, after whom the whole of London was running 
in vain, was his own private and particular prey. 
Dukes and earls, duchesses and ladies of inferior title 
smothered him with invitations, and he declined 
them all to sit over a bottle of simple claret and a 
plain chop with an old chum. 

“She’s a fine stately old lady,” continued Hogan, 
naturally unconscious of his hearer’s superior 
knowledge of his theme, “ and I suppose she’s always 
been a bit inclined to be hard about the poor boy 
that ran away, but when she learned that I’d just 
come hot from the man that was shot down by the 
side of ’m, she got out her handkerchief, the poor 
old dame, and wiped her glasses.” 

Hogan blew his nose and his eyelids grew a little red. 

“ I tell ye,” he said, defiantly, “ I was affected, and 
when her ladyship asked me to use my best influences 


XIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


159 


to bring you up to Lord Hounes’s house to have a 
talk with her I promised Td do my best.” 

This was more than the returned exile had bar- 
gained for. There lay there a danger of detection, 
and he stammered some lame excuse. 

“ Unused to the society of ladies. What should 1 
do in a drawing-room ? ” 

“ Me dear fellow ! ” cried Hogan. “ What are ye 
talkin' about } Ye'd have all the girls at your feet, 
like a Sultan. Not that that matters, for ye're 
mightily changed since the old days at Tashkesen 
if ye've grown feather-headed. But now really ye 
can't refuse. Here's an old lady that wants news 
of the last days of her great-nephew, and a young 
one that wants to hear about her dead sweetheart. 
Your own chum too, Morton, Ye can't find it in 
your heart to say no. They live just as quiet as 
mice, and yeVe bound to like them. Come up with 
me to-morrow morning when I pay my visit. Ye 
needn’t stay twenty minutes, and ye'll be doing me 
a personal service.” 

It was so slight and natural a thing to ask, and 
so easy to accede to, that the wanderer was troubled. 
He took refuge in a social fib, and being unused 
to that sort of exercise, boggled over it wofully. 

“ Not to-morrow. I am too busy.” 

“Ah, well!” said hearty Hogan, “there’s no trouble 
about to-morrow. We’ll go up the next day, and to- 
morrow I’ll tell them that ye’re coming.” 

“No, no,” cried Harry. “Tell them nothing 
of the sort. I — I would rather not meet anybody 
whilst I’m in town.” 


i6o HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

“What am I to tell them at all?” Hogan de- 
manded. “ That ye won’t come and exchange a word 
with two ladies that loved an old comrade that was 
shot down at the side o’ ye ? It’s not like ye, Morton ! 
Ye can’t refuse them.” 

Hogan had been so sure of his friend’s consent 
beforehand that he had actually pledged himself to 
bring him, and had even indulged in some harmless 
flourishes about the intimacy of his friendship with 
the great traveller and his influence over him, so that 
the refusal was doubly a disappointment 

“ I’ll think of it,” said Harry. “ We’ll speak of it 
later on. I don’t like to refuse you, Hogan. Leave 
it there for a little while.” 

When the two parted for the night Harry Wynne 
set a candle on either side his looking-glass, and 
sitting down stared steadily at his own reflection for 
a long time. He tried to recall to memory the slim 
shoulders and the beardless ingenuous face of youth, 
but he failed signally. He could not tell how far he 
had changed, but the scar, the tanned complexion, 
and the beard must, he thought, afford him an almost 
impenetrable disguise. He pondered long as to whether 
he dare risk the experiment of a visit, and at the 
thought of meeting Inthia again his heart sounded a 
mad alarum. It had been steadier a hundred times 
when he had held his life in his hand, and had ex- 
pected at every second to have it wrested from him. 
He went to bed half determined that he would dare 
the risk, but he woke up in the morning animated 
by less valorous fancies. His life of late years had 
been a rare school for rapidity and firmness of 


XIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. i6i 

decision. His vacillation worried him, and he told 
himself that he was growing effeminate in London, 
and began to long for his wilds again. 

Hogan, having once promised the famous traveller 
to Lady McCorquodale, was relentless in pursuit of 
his game. He was in and out of Wynne’s chambers 
a dozen times a day, and at last he quite unwittingly 
clinched the nail of argument. 

“ It’s no use going to-morrow,” said Hogan, “ because 
Miss Grey’s going into the country, and ’tis she I 
specially want to see you.” 

Harry discovered precipitately that to-morrow was 
the one day in the year that 'vv’ould suit him. He 
felt that he could encounter Lord Hounes and Lady 
McCorquodale without fear of recognition, and with 
no temptation to self-betrayal. The more he feared 
to meet Inthia the stronger grew his desire, and the 
more he came to wish the meeting, the more he feared. 

“ The broom’s at the door,” Hogan announced, 
thrusting his head into Wynne’s sitting-room at noon 
next day. “ We’re due already, but I’ve been kept 
waiting by a patient.” 

Time had not often seemed to go so swiftly as it 
passed on that rapid little journey. Harry’s heart 
was beating fast when Hogan’s carriage pulled up 
before the door of the house in Eccleston Square, and 
his mouth and lips were dry. If he could have had 
his choice he would sooner have scaled a battery with 
a determined enemy behind it than have mounted 
the innocent flight of steps before him. But he was 
in for the business now, and must needs stiffen 
his nerves and go through with it. 


M 


i 62 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

Almost before he knew it, Hogan’s voice, in oiliest 
suave medical tone, was introducing him. 

“ Me friend, Mr. Ronald Morton, the world-famous 
Asiatic explorer. Lady McCorquodale. Mr. Morton, 
Lord Hounes.” 

Lord Hounes, dried and sour, and withered to an 
extraordinary degree, bowed with his own frosty 
dignity, and waved a hand towards a wonderful old 
figure in an armchair. 

“ My father, the Earl of Bridgebourne.” 

The Earl of Bridgebourne had never been a big 
man physically, but in the extreme old age to which 
he had lived he seemed to have shrunk away 
to nothing. The skin clung tightly to his withered 
old temples as if it had grown too small for the 
skull. The toothless mouth fell in, and the nose 
and chin peaked beyond it, threatening to meet. Not 
a nerve or a muscle of his face seemed to have 
motion in it, and only his eyes were alive. They 
had grown amazingly large and brilliant, like a 
bird’s. 

The unknown visitor’s heart fluttered with a sudden 
unexpected tenderness and pity. The stately old 
man had been kind to him when he was a lad, had 
patted his head and advised him, and on two or 
three memorable occasions had tipped him a five- 
pound note. It was wonderful to himself to notice 
how near and keen and fresh the past from which he 
had severed himself grew at that moment. 

Lady McCorquodale’s hair was white, and arranged 
in scanty bands. She was less majestic than of old 
He thought she looked softened, gentler, and less 


XIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 163 

masculine. She had taken to spectacles, and looked 
shortsightedly at the visitor. 

Harry took the seat that was offered him, and Lady 
McCorquodale began to question him. 

“We understand from Dr. Hogan, Mr. Morton, 
that you are averse to society, and that during your 
brief stay in town you desire to be left alone as much 
as possible ? He bent his head in silence, but accom- 
panied that gesture with a little deprecatory wave of 
both hands, which seemed to make light of the matter. 
“ We are very sensible,"' her ladyship continued, “ of 
the favour you do us in coming here. You knew 
poor Harry .? ” 

The old lady's severe voice trembled. She had 
meant to put the question in her usual ceremonious 
fashion, and had introduced it solemnly enough, but 
it touched her heart when it came. The handsome, 
wrong-headed, foolish lad was dead, and being dead 
had long since been forgiven. 

“ 1 knew him, madam," the visitor answered simply, 
and waited for further questions. 

“ Where did you first meet him } ” asked her lady- 
ship. 

“ He went straight to the Byzance Hotel on the 
night of his arrival in Constantinople." He tried to 
avoid the lie direct, and hesitated from what his 
hearers took for shyness or long disuse of social habit. 
“We met there for an hour or two," he went on, 
forced to admit the situation frankly. “ I believe he 
joined the Polish Legion, but nothing came of that, 
and he finally went up country with a Circassian 
officer," 


M 2 


i 64 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

“We heard,” said her ladyship, interrupting him, 
“some confused story of his having saved an 
Englishman’s life from the Circassians. Did you 
know of that } ” 

“It was Ronald Morton’s life he saved.” 

The quaint form passed with the rest of the stranger’s 
oddities. 

“Your life ” cried the old lady trembling. “He 
risked his own } ” 

“ I am sure,” said the pretended Morton, shrugging 
his shoulders with an incomprehensible modesty, “ that 
he never thought of that.” 

“ He was brave,” said the old lady. Her tremulous 
lips told more and more of pride and affection, and 
perhaps something of repentance. Harry had been 
very young when the members of all his house had 
turned their backs upon him, and had left him to his 
own fatal devices. She thought piteously, “If they 
had only been a little more generous ! ” 

“ Did he often speak to you of home ? ” Lord 
Hounes asked drily, “ and of his own affairs } ” 

“ I knew his reasons for leaving England. You 
must let me speak of this. I am persuaded — I know 
it as well as I know that I am sitting here — that 
he meant honourably all along, that rogues took 
advantage of his inexperience of the world, and 
gulled him.” 

“ I have always said so,” the old earl broke in with 
shrill and wavering pipe. “ I have always said so. 
His uncle Percy maintained it to the day of his death. 
The boy was duped by rogues.” 

“We caused,” said Lord Hounes, in his dry-as- 


XIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


165 


dust parliamentary tones, ‘Sve caused the strictest 
inquiry to be made into his way of life, and could 
discover nothing, absolutely nothing, which militated 
against his character.’’ 

‘‘ If he could have guessed,” said the visitor, ‘‘ that his 
family would have taken so much care to do him 
justice he would have stayed, and faced the hollow 
charge against him. An able counsel could have 
blown it to the winds in a minute.” 

‘‘If I had not been certain,” said the old earl in 
his trembling falsetto, “if I -had not been certain of 
the boy’s honour I would never have paid the debts 
he left behind him.” 

The visitor looked up, with a glance at once keen 
and troubled. There was a momentary hoarseness 
in his tone as he responded. 

“ I wish poor Wynne could have known. It lay 
upon his mind like lead.” 

“ He seems to have made you his confidant,” said 
Lady McCorquodale. 

“ I do not think,” Harry answered, “ that he had a 
secret from me.” 

A ring at the outer bell and the opening of the 
outer door had passed unnoticed, but at this instant 
a figure entered the room and brought him uncon- 
sciously to his feet. 

“ Inthia ! ” cried the old lady. “ I thought you were 
forty miles away.” 

“ Roberts was mistaken as to the time of the train,” 
she answered. “We were twenty minutes late. I 
called on Lady Mabel as I drove home.” 

“ This is Mr. Morton, my dear,” said Lady McCor- 


i66 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


quodale. “ The great traveller in Asia, whose book you 
have been reading. Mr. Morton was with poor 
Harry when he died. My niece, Miss Grey, Mr. 
Morton.” 

The girl looked gravely and sweetly up at him, and 
their eyes met. In a second — in less than a second, 
in a flash of time — her calm expression changed to 
one of unutterable bewilderment. She had no eyes 
for the man who actually stood before her, bearded, 
massive, sun-burned, and scarred. The face that met 
her gaze was Harry’s, as she had seen him last. It 
was like a lightning flash for suddenness, and was 
gone as soon as there. The two stood eyeing each other 
strangely, and Lady McCorquodale, rising rapidly, took 
Inthia by the hand. 

‘‘ Sit down, dear,” she said tenderly, and whispered 
in a swift aside, “ I startled you.” 

“ No,” said Inthia’s eyes. She was herself again, but 
wondered still at the vision she had seen. 

My great-grandson,” said the earl, “ died like an 
Englishman, Mr. Morton.” 

The whole interview had weighed upon him from 
the first, and now that Inthia was here he felt it intoler- 
able. He thought he had come with a pardonable 
pretence, but now he felt as if he were steeped in 
infamy. He could not speak without evading lies. 
If he had found the people of his blood as he had 
supposed he left them, cruelly indifferent and cold, his 
position would have been easier. But it hit him hard 
to know that they had been sensitive of his honour, 
and that in spite of appearances they had believed in 
him. He found it difficult too to sit by and give no sign 


XIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


167 


when a casual phrase informed him of Percy Sea- 
forth's death. But for a strong and resolute repression 
the tears would have arisen to his eyes at that intelli- 
gence. The colonel had been like a father to him, 
and had stood next in his heart to Inthia. 

He had a purpose in mind, and could not yet 
afford to betray himself. He felt that he must harden 
his heart, as Joseph had done before his brethren 
thousands of years ago, though like Joseph he would 
fain have gone out and wept. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“Begad!” said Hogan, as he left the house at 
Harry’s side, “ ye’re curiously shy, Morton. Upon me 
word now, ye were blushing and boggling like a school- / 
girl. Ye weren’t used to be like that when ye were 
more accustomed to the society of ladies, I’ll go bail.’' 

Harry forced a laugh. He was content to leave Hogan 
to his fancy, and was glad that he had lighted upon so 
natural a supposition. Hogan wanted to drive him 
back to the hotel, but Harry insisted on shaking hands 
then and there. 

“ I’m in want of exercise,” he said. “ London cramps 
me. 

He strode away, and Hogan watched his massive 
figure as it went down the street. The medico was so 
full of pride in his friend that he could not refrain from 
playing him on the very coachman. 

“ D’ye know who that is, Harkett ? That’s the most 
famous man at this hour in London. That’s Mr. 
Ronald Morton, the great Asiatic explorer.” 

“ Him as rode on 'orseback from the Cahspian to the 
Pacific, sir.^” said the coachman, waking to sudden 


CHAP. XIV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


169 


interest. " He looks as if he^d gone through something, 
sir. A splendid figure of a gentleman.” 

Harry strode solidly away, eager to be alone 
with his own thoughts. Almost before he knew it 
he found himself in Hyde Park, and there seating 
himself on a bench in a quiet corner he tried to pull 
his random wits together. For a while he could think 
nothing but Inthia. His pulses sang her name. The 
thought of her face filled his mind. Many a thousand 
times in his lonely wanderings he had tried to picture 
her as grown to womanhood, and had tried to anti- 
cipate the changes time would bring. He thought her 
now infinitely more beautiful than he had ever 
pictured her, or than she had been in her girlhood. 
He believed he read a hint of settled sorrow in her 
face, and he accused himself, as any honest man was 
bound to do. That young life ought to have gone 
unshadowed. He sat in a sort of dreamland, when the 
thought crossed him that his own boyish wickedness 
and folly had killed her lover, and had left a virgin 
heart widowed. He felt like an assassin. What right 
had he to rob her in that way ? He had been a fool 
from start to finish, and had even misread the legend 
of sterling family pride which had stared him in the 
face. He ought to have known that a man in the 
position of Lord Bridgebourne would not allow the 
family honour to be tarnished for the sake of a few 
thousand pounds. The hard old man had paid his 
debts when he supposed him dead, and would have 
done at least as much to prevent the open shame 
of his appearance in the dock. 

Sitting there unobserved he drew from his pocket 


170 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


a small leather wallet, dark and polished with long 
use. It contained but a single sheet of paper — Inthia's 
last letter. He knew its words by heart, and had so 
known them any time this seven years, but he read 
the lines again with a sort of reverence. He had always 
heard the girl's impetuous and vivacious voice in the 
words, but now the woman's graver and gentler 
tones seemed to repeat them with a solemn surety. 

He had, in the course of the morning, felt so strangely 
moved to betray himself that he had been on the edge of 
doing it half-a-dozen times. Sitting retired in his little 
corner solitude, he half resolved to let his alias go. He 
could repay Lord Bridgebourne easily, and there lay 
his plain, honest duty. He had made an honourable 
and famous name, and felt that the indiscretion of 
his youth was wiped so clean away that no man would 
care to bring it up against him. His self-effacement, 
which had once looked like an act of heroism, seemed 
now only like one more folly added to the list. 

His mind swung to and fro like a pendulum. He 
would and he would not. His mood of indecision 
was all the less tolerable to him because of his 
accustomed way of life, full of the rapidest and most 
daring decision. He had made up no final mind 
upon the matter, when he rose to walk back to 
his hotel. There was a block at a crossing of the 
roads, and looking up he saw Lady McCorquodale 
and Inthia seated behind her ladyship’s black-liveried 
coachman. They bowed to him, and he raised his 
hat in answer, reading or fancying that he read, a 
renewal of the first inquiry in Inthia's eyes. If she 
should recognize him she could think of him only as 


Xivj HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 171 

a coward hiding under an alias from the reproach 
he dared not face. 

His thoughts were with him all day and through 
the greater part of the night. He awoke restless 
and unrefreshed, and walked out for an early 
morning swim in the Serpentine,, still debating 
the one question by the way. It was unsettled when 
he returned, and looked likely to remain unsettled. 

As he neared the hotel on his return he observed 
for the third or fourth time within the last day or 
two a curious figure on the pavement at the door 
— a man in an elegant little go-cart of finished con- 
struction, which was impelled and guided by the 
cripple’s own hands. The man wore a skull cap of 
dark blue velvet, which was in striking contrast with 
the dreadful pallor of his face. His skin was colour- 
less, and of a hard smooth texture, like white paper. 
His eyes were sunken, and of a cold dead porcelain 
blue. His face was so clean shaven that it looked 
innocent of the razor, but the chin was decorated 
by a little goat tuft, and whenever the man was not 
occupied in wheeling himself about he sat caressing 
this tuft with his blanched fingers, with a stiff, set 
smile, as if he were meditating mischief to somebody. 
The robust giant had never passed this ruined creature 
without a twinge of pity, which had yet a trace of 
repulsion in it. Constant suffering might well have 
given birth to that soulless grimace, and it was hard 
that a healthy man whose every movement was a bodily 
pleasure should punish suffering even in his thoughts. 

Behind the man this morning stood a tall and hand- 
some girl of a marked American type, slender and 


172 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


insolent. She had a hand upon the back rail of 
the go-cart near the invalid’s head, and was bending 
over him, when Harry first caught sight of them. 

The hall porter was standing on the steps, of the 
hotel, and was in conversation with them. Harry 
heard distinctly the name of Ronald Morton, and 
as he passed through the doorway was aware of 
whispers behind him. The reflection in the glass 
doors showed him the group outside, the invalid 
pushing his chair forward, the girl peering eagerly over 
his head, the hall porter nodding backwards and side- 
ways, as who should say “ There goes the man you 
spoke of.” Harry was constantly receiving some such 
evidence as this scene afforded him of the interest he 
excited in the public mind. He passed indoors and 
in a moment had forgotten the episode completely. 

The invalid set his chair in motion, gliding smoothly 
over the level pavement. The girl walked slowly at 
his side, keeping pace with him. 

“Gilead,” she said, looking down upon him, “that 
ain’t the man.” 

“ What ? ” the other snapped, turning his eyes upon 
her. 

“ It ain’t the man,” the girl repeated, with a drawling 
nasal decision. “Willie was no broader round the 
shoulders than I am. You could get three men like 
Willie into that man’s waistcoat.” 

“You always were a mule, Priscilla,” the cripple 
answered, “ and you always will be. You’d have been 
a mule if you’d been born to trousers, but being feminine 
you’re fixed up proper.” 

“ Mule or no mule,” the girl hummed through her 


XIV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 173 

pretty Httle nose, “ that ain’t the man. D’ye think 
I don’t know Willie Reid ? ” 

‘‘D’ye think / don’t know him.^” snarled the man 
in the go-cart “ Don’t men at his age thicken in the 
figure } He wasn’t over five-and-twenty. What’s to 
prevent his thickening in the figure ? I’ll tell you 
what it is, Priscilla — you make me mad.” 

“ I don’t care how mad I make you,” the girl hummed 
back at him with a tranquil, settled obstinacy, “ that 
ain’t the man.” 

“ Parrot ! ” said the invalid, and shot himself wrath- 
fully forward at a great pace. The girl walked 
calmly on, and by and by he came circling back again, 
made a tour round her and settled into his old place 
“ I’ll know if he’s the man or not,” he said ; “ I’ll put 
Heaton on to him.” 

Unconscious of the peculiar interest he excited, 
Harry breakfasted and settled himself to work at the 
preface his publishers had asked for a projected popu- 
lar edition of his book. A waiter announced a gentle- 
man to sec him. For a while he was indisposed to 
receive a stranger. He had been besieged by curious 
impertinents of the lion-hunting tribes, and had made 
his orders imperative against their admission. But this 
particular visitor clung tenaciously to his point, and 
was at last admitted. He was gray, and responsible 
in aspect, and might have been an eminently respect- 
able solicitor by his looks. 

“My instructions are, sir,” he said, “to place 
this letter and this packet in your own hands. You 
are Mr. Ronald Morton ? ” 

“ I am Ronald Morton.” 


174 he fell among THIEVES. Tchap. 

The gray, responsible man gravely handed him a 
sealed packet and a letter, and at once took up his 
hat to withdraw. 

“ Stay,” said Harry. “ There may be an answer.” 

‘‘ I was instructed to the contrary,” said the respect- 
able stranger, and with that and a quiet “Good 
morning,” he left the room. 

Harry broke the seal of the letter, and found Messrs. 
Coutts and Co. in correspondence with Mr. Ronald 
Morton. On the 3rd March, 1875, he was informed 
that he had, on the introduction of a respected 
client, made a deposit of seven hundred and fifty 
pounds, and a sealed parcel. With the exception of 
ten pounds twelve shillings and sixpence the whole 
sum deposited had been withdrawn a fortnight later, 
though Mr. Morton had distinctly understood that 
his balance was at no time to stand at less than five 
hundred pounds. The bankers’ letters calling his 
attention to this fact had been returned from the 
address left with them, and learning that Mr. Ronald 
Morton had returned to London they begged at 
once to place the sealed packet and a draft for the 
balance of his account in his hands, and to close 
correspondence. 

An air of cold business offence breathed through 
this epistle, and it was evident that the bankers 
were aggrieved at their client’s neglect and his 
contravention of their rules. 

“ But what to do with this confounded packet } ” 
the recipient asked himself. “ It doesn’t belong to 
me. Poor Morton used to say that he hadn’t a relative 
in the world. The ordnance map shows no Kekewich 


XIV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


175 


in Cheshire. I have inherited a mystery, and I must 
walk out of it by the straightest road.” 

He was not eager to present himself to a solemn 
bank manager with the declaration that he had 
adopted an aliaSy and bankers were not wont to sur- 
render valuables without being pretty sure of the 
identity of the persons to whom they handed them. 
Perhaps after all, he thought, he was troubling him- 
self for nothing. The deposit might consist merely 
of confidential papers of no value to any one but the 
owner. He had at least the right to look and see. 

So thought, so done. The packet revealed a mass 
of valuable bonds, and conspicuous on the top of it 
was the Imperial Eagle of Austria stamped on the 
issue of the Lottery Loan of 1854. The sheets lay 
close and solid, and he could form no notion of their 
value without a close inspection. The discovery stag- 
gered him, and added greatly to his perplexities. The 
only thing altogether clear to him was the fact that 
he could not keep them in his own hands. He had 
no more right to these valuables than any man who 
walked the street, but the question was how to give 
them back again. 

He was still deliberating, marching solidly to and 
fro in his room, when two gentlemen below presented 
themselves to the hall porter, and offering their cards 
requested that they should be at once carried to Mr. 
Ronald Morton. The hall porter was extremely sorry, 
but Mr. Morton's orders were imperative. He was not 
in be disturbed. The visitors were suavely and smil- 
ingly convinced that if Mr. Morton knew their names 
he would at once receive them. The hall porter was 


176 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

doggedly confident of the opposite and declined to 
disobey the unqualified orders he had received. The 
visitors appealed to the hotel manager, explained 
that their business was of the utmost importance to Mr. 
Morton himself, and declared that Mr. Morton would 
be extremely angry if he learned they had been 
sent away. On this the manager himself ascended 
to Mr. Morton’s rooms, and with a little flourish of 
apology set forth the reason of his intrusion. His 
guest took the visiting cards, and had no sooner 
glanced at them than he smiled with a curious 
expression. 

‘‘ Quite right,” he said. Show the gentlemen 

up stairs.” The manager retired. 

“Mr. Herbert Whale, F.L.D.S. ‘ RL.D.S. ’ And 
Captain Peter Heaton. It will be interesting to 
meet that pair again, but what do they want 
with Ronald Morton ? Poor Morton knew about 
them, and had no high opinion of them. But what 
brings them to see him } PIl vow that neither of 
them desires to see me.” 

A waiter ushered in the visitors, who advanced 
smiling, hat in hand, but stopped simultaneously, 
and glanced from Harry to each other with a 
look of sudden puzzlement. 

“ Mr. Ronald Morton ? ” said Captain Heaton, 
in a tone of somewhat puzzled inquiry. 

“At your service, gentlemen,” said Harry gravely. 
“ The hotel manager was so certain of the import- 
ance of your business that you have no doubt 
something of a pressing nature to say to me.” 

Mr. Herbert Whale responded to this speech by 


XIV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


177 


a slow, elaborate wink, and stepping on clumsy tip- 
toe to the door, opened it, peered out into the 
corridor, closed it and locked it. Having gone 
through this curious pantomime with a face ex- 
pressive of the liveliest humour, he returned, and 
in a cheerful, confidential whisper, said, “ How 
goes it, William ? ** 

Harry^s stare of amazement at this inquiry left 
Hump’s smile fixed upon his face. It stayed there 
for some seconds, and then gradually faded to a 
look of almost abject vacuity. 

“ Have you got too proud to know an old pal ? ’’ 
he asked at length. 

“You’re labouring under some singular miscon- 
ception, sir,” said Harry. 

“ I can’t say,” said Heaton, interposing himself 
smoothly between them, “that the tone you take is 
altogether surprising. You have changed, but 
you have hardly changed so much as you seem to 
fancy.” 

Harry looked from one to the other, and for a 
moment deliberated. 

“ Shall I be candid with you, gentlemen ? ” he 
answered. “ My first impulse was to put you to the 
door for a pair of impudent practical jokers. Per- 
haps however it may be best to listen to you. 
My time is valuable, and I shall be obliged if you 
will tell me, as shortly as you can, the nature of 
your business.” 

“ Mr. Gilfoil has twice written to you since 
your arrival in London, and has received no 
answer.” 

N 


178 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

‘‘That is possible,” said Harry. “Who is Mr. 
Gilfoil.?” 

Hump drove a facetious forefinger in the direction 
of his companion’s waistcoat. 

“ He wants to know who Gilead is. Tell him, 
Heaton.” 

There was something so mirth-inspiring in his 
own fancies that Mr. Whale sitting with one end of 
his walking stick in either hand, rubbed it to and 
fro upon his legs in a subdued ecstasy of humor- 
ous enjoyment, and chuckled to himself. 

“ Is Mr. Gilfoil the anonymous gentleman who 
desired me a day or two ago to walk into his 
parlour.^” Harry asked. He hcd come to the conclu- 
sion an hour ago that he had inherited a mystery. 
He thought it bade fair to turn out a very shady 
mystery, to say the least of it. The visit of Messrs. 
Hump and Heaton seemed at present to thicken it, 
but might end by clearing it. 

“ It is quite possible that he might adopt that 
playful form,” said Heaton. 

“Will you tell me why I am asked to walk into 
Mr. Gilead’s parlour ? ” 

“ It is seven years,” said Heaton, shrugging his 
shoulders with a smile, “since he had the pleasure 
of meeting you. He is afraid that you may have 
forgotten him, and he does not mean to be for- 
gotten.” 

“Will you tell me why his affections flow so 
strongly my way ? ” asked Harry. 

Hump seemed to find this inquiry altogether 
delicious. He grew scarlet in the face, and rubbed 


XIV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 179 

his walking stick up and down his thighs more 
briskly than before. Heaton himself seemed to see 
a dawning humour in the situation. There was a 
laugh in his voice as he responded, 

‘‘ Come now, wasn’t there a little account be- 
tween Messrs. Gilfoil and Company and yourself left 
unsettled when you disappeared into Asia ? ” 

“Was that so?” said Harry. “Will you tell me its 
nature and amount ? ” 

Heaton’s smile creamed all over his face. 

“ Don’t you think we’ve had enough of this ? ” 
he asked. “ It’s quite natural that you shouldn’t 
be eager to stump up, and really if you don’t want 
to know your old friends they won’t press themselves 
upon you. You don’t take into account,” he pursued, 
in a manner at once soothing and explanatory, “the 
change that has taken place in Gilead since his 
accident. He has grown morose and snappish. He 
has less patience than he used to have. Your seem- 
ing neglect of his letters has made him angry. 
Honestly, I know him better of late than you do, 
and he is even less disposed to be trifled with than 
he used to be. I won’t even say that he might not 
be dangerous.” 

“Gilead might be dangerous,” said Harry, with a 
stolid face. “ To me ? ” He tapped himself lightly 
on the chest as he spoke. 

“You have seen a great deal, no doubt, 
Heaton answered, “ but let me tell you, you have 
not seen anything much worse than Gilead if he 
gets his back up. Your memory ought to tell you 
that.” 


N 2 


i8o HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

‘‘We get no further, gentlemen,” said Harry. 
“What, in plain English, does Mr. Gilfoil want.^” 

“ In plain English, Mr. Gilfoil wants his share.” 

“And his fair share,” interjected Hump. “And the 
Co. want their shares as well.” 

“ His share of what asked Harry. 

“ His share of the property,” said Heaton. His 
creaming smile had disappeared, and had given way to 
a look of repressed impatience. 

“ His share of what property.^” 

Heaton rose with a gesture of sudden anger, and 
took a step or two across the room. 

“ Look here,” said Hump, rising also and ap- 
proaching Harry. “You’re spreading it too thick, 
young man. You want to pretend you haven’t been 
in it all along. That cock won’t fight. You say 
you’re Ronald Morton, and that’s quite good enough. 
We got your last letter from Bulgaria telling us you 
couldn’t be back for six months. That’s seven years 
ago, and now we’ve got you, William, you’re not 
going to slip us again. Just you make up your mind 
to that.” 

The situation was growing interesting, and it was 
one of a kind that Harry Wynne felt himself more 
at home in than he had been in that of yesterday. 
But it came suddenly to an end in a manner he did 
not understand. The gallant captain stood half sly, 
half fascinated, with his eye upon the pile of bonds. The 
fingers of his right hand fumbled eagerly at a little gold 
pencil-case which dangled from his watch-chain. He 
shot the cuff of his shirt sleeve across the knuckles 
of his left hand and pencilled a hasty note upon it. 


XIV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. i8i 

With that he turned swiftly, with an air of triumph 
and decision. 

“ Let me advise you,” he said, ‘‘ not to carry your 
present game too far, Mr. William Reid. Under- 
stand that you are dealing with men who are accus- 
tomed to enforce their rights. We do full credit to 
your genius for shifts and dodges, but you will recol- 
lect that the rest of us are safe, and you are not. 
You may take what course you choose, and I do not 
pretend to say what time will be allowed you. But 
you will be troubled by no further visits from us, and 
any further negotiations will begin on your own side. 
Good-morning.” 

He marched erect and soldier-like to the door, 
unlocked it, signalled to his companion, and went 
out, a monument of virtuous indignation. Half way 
down the stairs Hump tapped him on the shoulder 
with his walking stick. 

“You broke off rather short, old sonny.” 

Heaton cast a cautious glance about him, and saw 
that they were quite alone, then diving into his 
pocket produced a purse, and drew from it a folded 
scrap of paper. The paper was frayed at the edges, 
and he had to open it gingerly lest it should fall to 
pieces. 

“ One thousand pounds reward,’’ it ran, “ will be 
paid to any person giving such information as will 
lead to the conviction of the criminals and the re- 
covery of the bonds and notes stolen in transit between 
Boulogne and Calais on the night of the thirteenth in- 
stant.” Here followed a long list of the stolen securities 
and numbers of notes. Heaton, peering round Whale’s 


iS2 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. xiv. 

elbow, laid the trim nail of his little finger on one 
number, and then, shooting his shirt cuff over his 
hand, set the pencilled memorandum there above it. 

‘‘ That’s all, my boy. That was the number of the 
bond on top of the pile. They were lying on his 
table.’^ 


CHAPTER XV. 


Seven years ago the reader caught a momentary 
sight of one M. Vergueil, standing in a brown study 
at the door of Misseri’s Hotel in Constantinople. 
This gentleman was a figure in the police department 
of Paris, and enjoyed a high reputation both for 
astuteness and good fortune. But like others 
amongst the astutest and the happiest, he found 
one thing denied him, and he so puzzled over 
the one case which baffled his intelligence that his 
failure in that respect left a drop of gall at the bottom 
of every cup of success he quaffed. The governments 
of three or four countries had unitedly agreed to 
leave in M. VergueiFs hands the investigation of a 
series of railway robberies. He had started on his 
work with something like certainty, and bit by bit 
his case had melted away between his fingers. It 
became a forlorn hope in the first six months, and 
M. Vergueil became a man with a grievance. He 
laid hands on scores of notorious criminals, he had 
brilliant successes by the dozen, but he had made 


i 84 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

nothing whatever of the great railway robberies, and 
his disappointment clouded him. 

M. Vergueil’s business had brought him to London. 
Forged notes of the Bank of France had been put 
in circulation at Monte Carlo and Spa pretty exten- 
sively, and had been dropped here and there in small 
quantities in the great cities of Europe. The imita- 
tion of the hundred-franc note was so admirable that 
only an expert could be relied upon to detect the 
difference between it and the actual issue of the 
bank. M. VergueiFs inquiries had led him to the 
belief that the seat of the forgery was in England, 
and both in lighting upon the original track and in 
following it up he had so far been blessed with even 
more than his usual good fortune. 

He had taken up his head-quarters at the West- 
minster Hotel, and sitting in his room immersed in 
thought over a cigarette and a glass of sugared water, 
he found himself awakened by the living accents of a 
voice which was at that moment speaking to his 
fancy’s ear. 

“ Mr. Ronald Morton,” said the voice. 

M. Vergueil set his whole soul in his ears and 
listened. He might hear nothing worth the hearing, 
but on the other hand he was a gentleman who never 
missed a chance, and he was peculiarly anxious to 
know all that could be known of the owner of this 
particular voice. The room in which he sat and that 
in which the conversation was going on communicated 
by a door, which was for the present locked on one 
side and bolted on the other. M. Vergueil noiselessly 
kicked off his slippers, and crossing the room with 


1 XV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 185 

a cat-like nicety of tread, dropped on his knees with 
; his ear at the key-hole, and so stayed. The watchful 
grin upon his face was a study for intentness, but 
every now and then as the conversation went on the 
mere ghost of a smile flickered across it, and at the 
mention of Mr. Gilfoirs name his eye sparkled 
brightly for a single second. In his eagerness to 
hear he hardly dared to breathe, and to let his breath 
go silently he clenched his teeth with his lips drawn 
away from them in a curiously ghastly smile. When 
at last Heaton addressed his interlocutor as Mr. 
William Reid the detective gave such a start that 
his head came into contact with the door knob, and 
for a little while between his rage at his own clumsi- 
ness, his fear that he had betrayed a listeners pre- 
sence, and the actual physical pain of the blow, he 
lost knowledge of what was going on. The next 
thing that came clearly to him was the gallant 
Captain’s noisy and defiant Good morning.” He 
heard the door open and close, and listened to the 
footsteps in the corridor, and hastily snatching up a 
pair of boots, in order to have some ostensible reason 
for quitting his chamber, he dodged cat-like to the 
head of the stairs, and peered after* Messrs. Hump 
and Heaton. He withdrew his head swiftly as the 
Captain looked about him, and glued himself to the 
wall of the corridor. There was a little silence be- 
tween the pair, and the detective’s strained ears caught 
the rustle of paper only. Then he heard Heaton’s 
voice saying, 

“ That’s all, my boy. That was the number of the 
bond on top of the pile. They were lying on his table.” 


i86 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

M. Vergueil admitted to his detractors that he was 
lucky. He had a little satiric habit among them of 
attributing all L'.s success to the unbought blessings 
of fortune, but as he walked quietly back to his room 
he owned that no such stroke of luck as this had 
ever come to him. He had given William Reid up ^ 
this half-dozen years, had abandoned him with grief 
and wounded pride. He had longed for him as men 
only long for the unattainable ; and being a person of 
a quick and vivid temperament had sometimes gritted 
his teeth in sudden rage at the manner in which he 
had been evaded. And now the delightful, unhoped 
for, unattainable thing, the fabled bird of content- 
ment whom men follow for ever and who will not 
allow himself to be caught, came to him without even 
a call, and perched upon his hand. The eminent 
detective was happier than if he had heard that 
some dead millionaire had bequeathed him all his 
belongings. He sat in his own room smiling radi- 
antly, and gripping one hand with the other, as if 
he were shaking hands with himself in a delighted 
self-congratulation. 

He listened for the movements of the next room’s 
occupant, and allowed his mind to play about him 
in charmed speculation. It was no wonder that he 
had not been able to track William Reid into the 

* 

wildest fastnesses of Asia. It was not at all remark- i 
able now that no attempt had been made to place j 
the stolen bonds upon the market. William Reid 
had left them in safe keeping that Ronald Morton 
might, after long lapse of time, withdraw them. He < 
could not keep out of his mind a grim respect for j 


XV.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


187 


the man v^ith whom he would have to deal. It was 
no common little scoundrel who had buried himself 
for seven years in the earth's darkest places to build 
up a barrier between himself and justice. M. Ver- 
gueil’s blood flushed at the fancy. He loved a worthy 
adversary, and the man seemed to him to have 
played a giant game. His heart warmed towards 
him. 

He sat in resolute patience for hours, scarcely 
moving, and insensible to weariness or ennui. 
Patience met his reward at last, and his neighbour 
went away, locking his door behind him. He looked 
from his own chamber door, and caught sight of the 
stalwart retiring figure. He had remarked this 
noticeable neighbour of his before, and something in 
the square set of the shoulders and the poise of the 
head struck him anew. 

“ He will be a fiend when I come to deal with him,” 
said M. Vergueil to himself. * 

He followed him calmly down the stairs to make 
sure of his disappearance from the hotel, and linger- 
ing on the hotel steps with a pretence of consulting 
some memoranda which he drew from his packet he 
heard the eminent traveller call a cab. 

“ Where to, sir ^ ” 

‘‘ The Fancy Fair, Albert Hall.” 

‘‘ We are beginning to lose our native modesty,” 
said M. Vergueil, smiling to himself, “ and to go a 
little into society.” 

With that he turned with an elaborate air of having 
forgotten something, and marched briskly up the 
stairs. As he went he drew from his pocket a bunch 


i88 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

of keys, calmly selected one, and went on dangling it 
between his thumb and finger. He walked straight 
to Roland Morton’s room, and with the insolence and 
aplomb begotten of long service unlocked the door, 
passed through, and secured it by the bolt on the 
other side. He took a survey of the place. A 
portmanteau stood in one corner of the room, and 
dropping on his knees beside it he selected from his 
bunch of passkeys one that looked likely for the 
purpose, and tried it in the lock. 

‘‘ That will be a work of time,” he said. “ The lock 
is a patent. Very well, I will try elsewhere first.” 

The lock of the wardrobe offered no difficulty, and 
there before him on the middle shelf lay a great pile 
of Austrian bonds. He smiled placidly, and drew 
from his pocket a memorandum book, on one page of 
which was pasted a slip of newspaper. He consulted 
the cutting and the number of the topmost bond. 
Then he smiled anew, more placidly even than before 
and extracting a single sheet from the middle of the 
pile he folded it deliberately and put it into his breast 
pocket. 

Next he relocked the wardrobe, walked to the door 
and listened there for a moment, and slipping out to 
the corridor, was in his own room in a twinkling. 
He stayed there but a very little while, drawing on 
his gloves with a thoughtful look. 

“ That will do,” he said. “ I can enlighten Mr. 
Frost at once. He can be trusted to hold his tongue 
until the proper moment, and he has waited long and 
patiently enough to deserve a little hope.” 

He walked down stairs, ordered a cab, and being 


XV.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 189 

driven to Park Lane alighted at the entrance of a 
mansion there, and tendering his card, asked for Mr. 
Frost. Mr. Frost was not at home, but M. Vergueil, 
extracted from the footman the intelligence that his 
master had gone to the fancy fair, that day opened at 
the Albert Hall. Thither M. Vergueil pursued him, 
and after a prolonged wandering about the hall found 
the object of his search. The detective was not a 
man who permitted himself easily to be surprised, 
but for the moment he was knocked all abroad by an 
unexpected coincidence. Mr. Frost was engaged in 
animated converse with no less a person than Ronald 
Morton. After the first shock of surprise this lent a 
certain piquancy to the situation to his mind. 

The two men stood near a stall over which appeared 
the names of Lady McCorquodale, Lady Mabel 
Ventnor, and Miss Grey, and one stately old lady and 
two pretty young ones were listening together with 
Mr. Frost whilst the eminent traveller talked. M. 
Vergueil approached the group with a subtle triumph 
stirring sweetly at his heart. He raised his hat with 
quite a grand air. 

‘‘ Pardon my intrusion,” he said, in English a little 
more set and deliberate than natives use, and only 
faintly noticeable for its accent. ‘‘ Permit me to 
recall myself to the memory of Mr. Frost, with whom 
I have one moment’s urgent business.” 

No need to recall yourself,” said Frost. ‘‘ Excuse 
me for a single instant,” he added to the ladies. 

“ A single instant,” echoed M. Vergueil. No 
more.” 

His face gave no sign, but he had not often in his 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


190 

life felt so happy. He had taken the prosecutor from 
under the nose of the criminal, and had left the 
trapped rascal there secure. It was a beautiful sensa- 
tion, an apt reward for seven years' patience, a 
fitting solace for seven years' disappointment. 
Mr. Humphrey Frost's millions made his progress ' 
across the hall a little difficult. • He was waylaid with 
fascinating smiles, and wheedled by a score of in- 
sinuating tongues. He parted with a good many 
sovereigns and five pound notes en route, for he had 
gone there ready to be plucked, and accepted the 
process with a smiling urbanity. At last he was 
through the crowd, and drawing Vergueil into the 
conservatory turned round and faced him. 

“You have made a discovery he asked. 

“ I have made a discovery," Vergueil answered. 
He took the bond from his pocket and laid it in 
Frost’s hands. 

“ Is that one of my Austrians } ” Frost asked 
after looking at it. 

“ That is one of your Austrians,” answered Vergueil, 
like a polite echo. 

“ How did it come into your hands 

“ I stole it,” whispered Vergueil. “ I stole it from ^ 
the thief this afternoon. He has a mass of them in i 
his possession." 1 

“ Have you arrested the man } " Frost asked. 

“ Not yet. At present that would be indiscreet." 
He looked cautiously about him, and having made ; 
sure that they were out of earshot he added in a low < 
tone, “ I am here on government business. I have | 
reason to think that I have my hand over the forgers j 


xvj HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 191 

of French banknotes. The man in whose possession 
I found the bonds is one of the gang, and the same 
people who are issuing the counterfeit notes seem one 
and all to be implicated in the railway robbery in 
which your bonds were lost. In telling you this 
Mr. Frost, I need not say that I rely absolutely upon 
your silence. I do not speak of business of this kind 
to everybody, but I have already had such excellent 
proof of your discretion that I know beforehand that 
I risk nothing in telling you. I thought you had a 
right to know, and I give you the information as soon 
as possible, in the assurance that you will keep it as 
secret as the grave.” 

Humphrey Frost was a very considerable personage, 
but M. Vergueil took a tone of quiet authority with 
him which he in nowise resented. 

“You may rely upon my silence,” he responded 
simply. “ May I go back to the ladies } Would you 
like me to introduce you ? You are aware that 
M. Vergueil is a distinguished figure. Everybody 
knows of him, everybody talks about him, but nobody 
has the good fortune to meet him.” 

“ Good fortune } ” said Vergueil, “ that depends. 
It is not everybody who thinks it good fortune to 
encounter me. But I beg you to excuse me from the 
honour of an introduction. I am like the highway- 
man of old, I prefer to throw aside my incognito only 
in places suitable to my purpose.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


Whilst M. Vergueil sat like patience in an arm- 
chair in his own apartment listening with a somewhat 
tigerish vigilance to the movements of his neighbour, 
Harry Wynne was busy with his own reflections. 

‘‘ So it seems,” his thoughts ran, ‘‘ that poor Mor- 
ton was a swindler. I thought that hair-dying 
game of his was a mere bit of foppery, and now I 
suppose it was part of a disguise. No wonder I 
couldn't find Kekewich in Cheshire, or that the 
Morton family in those parts had left no trace be- 
hind them. I didn't even steal a real name from 
him. He was a kindly hearted sweep. He was very 
gentle with that bruised leg of mine. 

“ I think I have Mr. Hump this time. It's odd 
when one comes to think of it, how much mischief a 
real callous scoundrel will do for such a little profit. 
Supposing that he and Heaton, and Butterfield 
shared what they got from the Earl of Bridgebourne 
between them, what would it amount to ? Two or 
three hundreds apiece at the outside. And for that 


XVI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


193 


the blackguards hunted a foolish lad from his native 
country, robbed him of his sweetheart, disgraced 
and proscribed him. Was I an especial greenhorn, 
or are there young fellows about town in the same 
sort of mess this minute ? I haven’t the pleasure of 
your acquaintance as yet, Gilead, but I will walk 
into your parlour, since I can meet your friends 
there, and we will all enjoy ourselves together.” 

He was filled with a righteous joy at the prospect 
of detecting and discomfiting the villains who had 
ruined him. The belief in Inthia’s fidelity to his 
memory made his wrath against them all the greater. 
They had robbed him of her all these years, and 
they had robbed her of him. It was out of no cox- 
combry that he knew that she loved him. She had 
had one of the best men in England at her feet 
for years. He was still there, and was evidently 
ready to stay there all his lifetime. Only a profound 
attachment to the memory of her boyish sweetheart 
could have kept the girl from accepting so brilliant 
an offer from so excellent a man as Humphrey Frost. 
Harry felt warm and friendly to his rival, as an 
honest lover may when he knows that the rival’s 
presence brings no danger. 

‘‘I will keep my alias,” he said to himself, as he 
walked with a resolute footstep up and down the 
room, hurried into physical motion by the tumult of 
his mind. “ I will keep my alias until I have un- 
masked these scoundrels, but not an hour beyond. 
It is more than my right to proclaim myself, it is a 
duty. I must repay the old man the money he 
spent to clear me. I must tell Inthia who I am, and 

O 


194 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


ask her if she can take her lover back again. I have 
been a fool too often to dare to brag of wisdom now, 
but God knows I have tried hard to atone to my own 
heart, and I know humbly that I am a better man 
than I was when I went away.” 

His mind ran in these grooves for hours. At one 
minute he melted at the thought of Inthia, and at the 
next he felt a solemn exultation over the rascals who 
had broken him. 

No man lives at high pressure for ever, and even a 
a lover, and the hero of a real tragedy, will find 
moments of rest and quiet. Harry ordered luncheon 
in his own room, and attacked it with something like 
his desert appetite, in spite of the exercises of love 
and war upon which he was engaged. Then in due 
time he dressed with an unusual, scrupulous care, and 
betook himself to the fancy fair at the Albert Hall, 
drawn thither by the advertised fact that Inthia had 
partial charge of one of the stalls. He could see her 
and be near her, could speak to her and hear her 
voice, and his pulses sang with a tender triumph at 
the thought of her truth, her goodness and her 
beauty. He was not quit of the shame of his old 
errors and follies, nor, to do him justice, was he the 
man to ask to be quit of it until he had paid his 
penalties in full, and had made confession and restitu- 
tion. He would owe a lifelong devotion even then. 
But there was yet a delight in standing behind the 
veil of his alias, and in watching as it were unseen 
the workings of that generous, unforgetting heart. 
How many women were there in the world, he asked 
himself, who could have kept faith unimpaired 


XVI.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 195 

through such dark days as he had left her to ? His 
heart knelt before her in pure worship, as if she were 
a saint enshrined. 

The great commonplaces have their way in spite 
of all heroisms and passions. The crowd at the 
Albert Hall was as flippant, as uninteresting, and as 
banale as a crowd usually is to the stranger in its 
midst. He was there with his emotions, and the 
fashionable mob was inappropriate. He was recog- 
nised, followed about, pointed at. He was the target 
for hundreds of pairs of delicately held tortoiseshell 
rimmed glasses, and of scores upon scores of single 
eye glasses. People pressed upon him with that 
impertinent and intolerable scrutiny which is only 
seen in well dressed assemblies. By and by other 
celebrities turned up, and to his huge contentment 
drew the attention of the crowd away. He was free 
to seek and to find Inthia’s stall, and there, standing 
in front of it, he found his old acquaintance and long- 
standing rival Humphrey Frost, who had already 
bought so much that he was ashamed to buy more. 
The stall was half denuded by his purchases, and 
Lady McCorquodale was in majestic high spirits 
with the magnificence of her receipts. 

Mr. Humphrey Frost was introduced to the dis- 
tinguished traveller, and shook hands with him 
without a suspicion of his identity. 

Mr. Morton,” said Lady McCorquodale, ‘‘ was 
with our poor dear Harry at his death. The poor 
boy was shot down at his side, and Mr. Morton 
himself was dangerously wounded at the same 
moment” 


O 2 


96 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


At this Frost began to question warmly, and 
whilst the conversation was still going on a smooth 
gentleman of foreign exterior, with a scarcely per- 
ceptible foreign accent, approached the pair and drew 
the millionaire away. 

“You will understand, Mr. Morton,” said her stately 
ladyship, “how very natural it is that your return 
to England should bring poor Harry to our minds 
again. He was always our favourite, and we can 
never forget him, but there is a freshness about his 
memory now.” The old lady's dark eyes were sus- 
piciously brilliant, but she continued with her usual 
dignity. “ He did not know what he was running 
away from. It is quite possible that if he had lived 
he would have been the head of the family. My 
father is ninety-nine years of age, Mr. Morton, and in 
the course of nature he cannot last much longer, but in 
constitution he is scarcely older than Lord Hounes. 
Charles Seaforth, Lord Hounes’s son, is a confirmed 
valetudinarian. He has been married thirteen years, 
and has no family. Colonel Seaforth, poor Harry's 
uncle, who was next in the line, is dead, though his 
life seemed to be worth the other three put together. 
And so you see if the poor foolish boy had lived he 
would have been very near to the earldom of Bridge- 
bourne now. You must forgive me for speaking of 
these things to you, but Harry was a comrade of 
yours, and I can see that you cared for him. You will 
not be impatient at the recital of an old woman's 
trouble.” 

How little, he thought, he had known that they 
all cared for him. Half the past was obliterated 


XVI.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 197 

in his mind. He forgot and was willing to for- 
get the angry opposition which her ladyship had 
offered to him. That at least was buried with 
the past. 

That sunburned and massive exterior the traveller 
had brought back with him showed nothing of the 
tender riot in his heart. He and Inthia had saluted 
each other to all appearance after the most casual 
and commonplace fashion. But he could not for his 
soul keep out of his eyes for the one brief second 
during which they rested upon hers, a hint of the wor- 
ship which filled his mind. She had grown to be a 
finished woman of the world, and was not to be 
scared out of her self-possession by an ardent glance. 
Her looks were all the cooler for it, but the glance 
fluttered her strangely. She wondered a little that 
she was not angered by it, it seemed so full of a 
meaning which no stranger had a right to express to 
her. She was not in the least angry, except with 
herself because she could command no anger. On 
the contrary she felt an almost overpowering curiosity 
about the man, and must needs look at him again. 
That instinct of the eye, the working of which every- 
body has experienced, warned Harry of her gaze. 
Their eyes met point blank, and flashed an untrans- 
latable message from each to each. She felt a vivid 
blush dye her very throat and forehead, and turned 
hastily away. He, knowing that his glance had 
frightened her, abused himself savagely, and tried to 
pin himself down to the vivacious chatter of Lady 
Mabel, who was pressing a small pocket portfolio 
upon him. 


igS HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

‘‘ It is quite a gem in its way,” said her ladyship, 
musingly. “ There is nothing here, Mr. Morton, 
which purchasers dare criticise, unless, indeed, they 
are armed with feminine terrors. All these objects 
of beauty are the work of our own hands. This 
portefeuille is mine.” She made a pretty pretence of 
surprise on opening it. ‘‘No. I must not steal a 
sister artist's credit. This is Miss Grey's embroidery. 
I recognise it by its neatness. My own style has 
more bravura in it. It is only five pounds. Surely 
you need no persuasion.” 

He needed none, indeed. At that moment he 
would have given all he owned for the possession of 
any trifle which had actually felt the touch of Inthia's 
fingers. He paid the five pounds, and the elegant 
trifle was his own. He put his hand to his breast 
pocket, and drew out the little leather wallet which 
held Inthia's last letter. His heart so overflowed over 
the old souvenir and the new that his fingers and his 
bearded lips both trembled. That wonderful instinct 
of the eye struck him again, and he looked up through 
a thin, swift flash of tears. Once more he met 
Inthia's glance, and again she blushed beneath it, 
and turned away in a new wonder and confusion. 
How dared the man to look at her, and why did she 
not resent it ? Why did she even feel a pleasure in 
it ? A raw country girl would have known better 
how to preserve her dignity. 

Lady Mabel was holding up the note in a half- 
coquettish, secret triumph to Lady McCorquodale, so 
that she and the old lady saw nothing of this rapid 
byplay. Inthia was quite unnerved, and fell with 


XVI.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 199 

shaking fingers to arranging some trifles about the 
stall. 

At this point Humphrey Frost came providentially 
back again, and renewed the broken talk. Harry 
could speak with him, at least, without betraying the 
emotions which filled him. By and by Lady Mabel 
broke in upon them. 

‘‘After your presence at a fancy fair, Mr. 
Morton, your profession of recluse will not be allowed 
to serve you. A fancy fair, except for the stall- 
keepers, is the most frivolous of town amusements. 
A ball, by comparison, is quite a solemn function. I 
shall really expect to see you at Milne House on 
Friday. I have received a response to my invitation 
beginning, ‘ Mr. Ronald Morton regrets,^ and bearing 
lithography upon its face. Now that shows that you 
are declining invitations wholesale, but really I expect 
you to reconsider your determination.” 

“You will be at Lady Mabel's ball. Miss Grey 
said Frost, leaning across the counter. 

“ We are dissipating terribly this week,” Inthia 
answered, with an almost feverish brightness. “We 
have three days of the fancy fair, the garden party 
at Lambeth Palace on Thursday, and Lady Mabel's 
ball on Friday.” 

“Come, Mr. Morton,” said Lady Mabel, “pray 
consent to bear the penalties of your position. If 
you are a shy lion I promise that you shall not be 
over-hunted.” 

“ I shall be delighted,” said Harry, “ to accept your 
invitation.” 


200 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Inthia experienced a new disturbance. She had 
actually indicated her intended whereabouts, and it 
looked to her as if she had offered an appointment. 
The man had certainly accepted it. And even yet 
she was not angry. Lady Mabel enjoyed quite a 
reputation as a lively and agreeable chatterbox, and 
once having found that the new lion, in spite of his 
scar and his other reminiscences of the desert, was 
clawless, she played about him with all the popgun 
artillery of her conversational charms. At something 
she said Frost broke into a decorous laugh, and 
Harry, whose spirits were at something like fever 
heat, took it up in less conventional fashion. He had 
always had a jolly and infectious laugh, and had not 
of late years been accustomed to confine it within 
drawing-room limits. It rang out over the hum of 
talk, and two or three score of people turned to 
look at him. Inthia found Lady McCorquodale re- 
garding her almost with a look of terror, and at that 
became conscious of her own aspect. Both hands 
had gone to her heart, and she was standing with 
parted lips and frightened eyes. 

The laugh was so like Harry’s. 

When she had first seen Mr. Ronald Morton he 
had brought Harry to her mind. The laugh brought 
him back again even more vividly. The look the 
stranger had bent upon her had been like Harry’s. 
A mad, half-formed fancy made her limbs tremble. 
She knew how foolish and how wild it was, and put 
it from her mind, but she knew now the source of 
the interest the traveller excited in her. The tones 


XVI.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


201 


of his voice had now and then a hint of Harry’s in 
them. His eyes wore a look of Harry — a resem- 
blance fugitive, but strong. She understood her own 
feeling, and in that knowledge became mistress of 
herself again. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


At about six o’clock that evening M. Vergueil, 
strolling leisurely into the vestibule of the hotel, saw 
there a man in a velvet skull-cap of dark blue seated 
in a little go-cart. He was in animated conversation 
with the hall porter, and the detective, turning his 
back upon him, studied the addresses of the telegrams 
exposed in a glass case upon the wall. 

“ Gilfoil,” said the man in the go-cart, in a strong 
American tone. Gilead C. Gilfoil, to see Mr. Ronald 
Morton. That’s my card, and it’s got to go up stairs.” 

“ Well, sir. I’ve told you already,” the hall-keeper 
answered, ‘‘ that Mr. Morton’s orders are imperative. 
Your name, sir, is not on the list.” 

“ I sha’n’t leave till I’ve seen him,” the man in the 
go-cart responded, “ and if you won’t take up tny 
card, you’ll have to take up a note. Get me an 
envelope.” 

The man obeyed, and whilst he was away M. 
Vergueil continued his study of the telegrams in the 
glass case. Mr. Gilfoil pencilled a line or two upon a 


CHAP. XVII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 203 

leaf torn from his pocket-book, put his brief missive 
into the envelope handed to him by the hall porter, 
and was in the act of addressing it, when a young 
man of commonplace exterior came down the stair- 
case, fluttering a sheet of paper in his hand.” 

‘‘ That’s the amended list,” he said, addressing the 
hall-porter. “ There are two or three new names on 
it. You’ll find the additions at the bottom.” 

With that and a nod the young man was gone. 
The hall-porter, casting his eye over the paper 
placed in his hand, turned again to the man in the 
go-cart. 

Mr. Gilfoil,” he said, “your name is here. Mr. 
Morton’s secretary has just put the list into my 
hands.” 

“ That’s all right,” said Mr. Gilfoil. “ You’ve got a 
lift, I reckon. Where is it ? ” 

“ This way, sir.” 

Mr. Gilfoil set his little wheeled chair in dexterous 
motion, and followed the man’s footsteps. M- Ver- 
gueil ceased his interested study and walked quietly 
up stairs. He went so leisurely that the man in the 
go-cart had been admitted to Mr. Ronald Morton’s 
rooms before the detective had entered the corridor. 

Harry Wynne stood in the centre of the room to 
receive his visitor, and when the waiter opened the 
door Mr. Gilfoil steered deftly into the apartment. 
The door closed behind him, and the two were left 
alone. The paralytic sat in his chair with one blanched 
hand on either of the handles by which its mechanism 
was moved, cocking his porcelain blue eyes upwards 
at the other’s face. 


204 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

“You're backing down a little, are you, William ? " 
he said in a tone of dry satiric triumph. 

Harry returned no answer, but studied his man 
with a look of calm inquiry. The man studied him 
in answer, pressing upon him a daring and insolent 
gaze. 

“You can stand where you are, William,” he said, 
after staring at him for perhaps half a minute. “ I'll 
take a tower of observation round you.” 

He set his wheeled chair in motion, threading 
noiselessly among chairs and tables, and keeping his 
eye fixed upon his supposed recalcitrant confederate. 
A mere flash of amusement lit Harry's eyes as the 
examiner passed behind him, but by the time Mr. 
Gilfoil came round to his starting place he had gone 
as impassive as before. 

“You would appear to be interested in my personal 
appearance, Mr. Gilfoil,” he said quietly. 

“ I am that,” Mr. Gilfoil responded, and continued 
his scrutiny. “You've altered, William, and I ain't a 
bit surprised that you thought that you could bluff us. 
You might ha' done it too, I don’t mind telling you, 
if you'd had the nous to take a new alias. You 
wouldn't let out much to Peter this morning, but it 
wasn’t like you to leave them bonds about, was it, 
William .? ” 

His wicked blue eye bored at the supposed William 
like a gimlet. 

“You and your comrades, Mr. Gilfoil,” Harry 
answered him, “seem to have a curious love of 
mystery. A Captain Heaton, who announced himself 
as your friend, was here this morning, and offered me 


XVII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 205 

a great number of mysterious inuendoes. I besought 
him to speak plainly, but it was all of no avail. He 
persisted in all manner of vague evasions, and I want 
to tell you now, Mr. Gilfoil, that I am prepared to 
call a spade a spade, and that I expect you, in your 
dealings with me, to display a similar candour. 
What do you want from me } ” 

Mr. Gilfoil wheeled his chair a foot or two nearer, 
and motioned to a seat. 

“ Sit down there,” he said. ‘‘ I don't know what 
kind o' game you're playing, but you ain't going to 
give me away if I can help it. You ain't gone deaf, 
have you, William ? You don’t want hailing through 
a speaking trumpet. Bend your head down.” 

Harry did as he was told. The little paralytic 
looked viperous enough to give him a touch of actual 
physical distaste for nearness, but he had not been 
accustomed to stick at trifles in that direction. 

“ There is nobody, so far as I know, to overhear us, 
but you may speak as quietly as you please. Only 
tell me in plain English what you want.” 

D'ye see this } ” whispered Gilfoil with a sudden 
and intensely savage gesture of his blanched hands, 
which seemed to take in himself from he^d to feet. 

“ I see,” Harry responded. 

‘‘You see,” returned Mr. Gilfoil, growing cold as 
suddenly as he had grown hot ; “ and bitter little you 
care when you do see. You ask me what I want, and 
I’m going to tell you. I want payment for seven years' 
solitary confinement with hard labour in this machine. 
I want to be paid for a paralysed spine and legs that 
ain’t no use to me. You got off scot free, William, 


2o5 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


and I didn’t. When we dropped off that there train 
together you fell soft and I fell hard, and now you’re 
going to fall hard and I’m going to fall soft if I know 
how to. Now don’t you make any mistake about 
that, William, because it’s so.” 

“ What will be will be, Mr. Gilfoil,” said Harry. 
“ We shall see.” 

“ Now I won’t take any Mr. Gilfoiling from you,” 
the cripple answered with that tendency to fly irritably 
off at any tangent which sufferers of his kind so com- 
monly display. ‘‘ My name’s Gilead, and I’ll trouble 
you to call me by it.” 

‘‘If you insist upon it, Gilead.” 

Mr. Gilfoil was far from being mollified by this 
concession, and fixed a venomous eye upon his com- 
panion, as if he would willingly have done him any 
cruel mischief, and was only held back from it by his 
own impotence. 

“ You got off with the coin,” he said, “ and I got off 
with a paralysed spine and legs that ain’t no use to 
me. I thought you meant to be square, and if you 
didn’t, I’m blamed if I know now what made you 
pick me up and carry me three miles to that thunder- 
ing cutter. •‘If you meant to keep your claws on 
everything you’d have found it a safer game to leave 
me there. I should have split in that case to be sure, 
but they wouldn’t have given you more than fourteen 
or fifteen years, and you’ll be worse off than that, 
William, if you try to get around me now. My share’s 
half. You can arrange afterwards with the Co. as 
you like. They’re poor cattle, Hump and Peter and 
Butterfield are, and that’s a fact. You’ve got the 


XVII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


207 


bonds in your hands. They were seen here this 
morning. We’ll go over ’em now, if you please, and 
I’ll take half of ’em.” 

At the shock of this discovery Harry rose to his 
feet and took a step or two across the room. 

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Gilfoil, reading these signs in 
his own way, “ it was a greenhorn’s trick to leave ’em 
open on the table. It wasn’t a bit like you. But the 
Captain saw ’em, and he’s got the numbers. Fetch 
’em out, and let’s have a look at ’em.” 

“ Can’t you give me a chance to be honest, Gilead ? ” 
said Harry. With this complete revelation of the 
people implicated his last shred of unwillingness 
to play the part of William Reid vanished. He 
accepted the position frankly, and set quick wits 
to work to choose the most natural standpoint. 
“What do you think I went away for seven years 
for, Gilead.?” 

“Well if you ask me,” said Gilead, “I should say 
it was because you hadn’t got the pluck to come 
home again. There were a heap of kind inquiries 
after you.” 

“Suppose I had had about enough of it, Gilead.? 
Suppose I’d made up my mind that the game wasn’t 
worth the candle. Suppose I said to myself ‘ I’ll 
start fresh, make an honest name, and cut the old 
gang altogether.’ Suppose ” 

“You’re doin’ a pile o’ ^supposing,” interjected 
Gilead. “Suppose I suppose a little. S’pose you 
stop all this tommy rot and hand all them bonds out.” 

“Suppose I don’t .?” answered Harry. “Suppose 
I hand them to the rightful owners .? ” 


2o8 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

‘‘ Tm the rightful owner of one half of *em,” Gilfoil 
answered, “ and I’m going to have what belongs to 
me. As to you turning honest, William, I shall 
believe that when I see the Tower o’ London floating 
in mid-Atlantic. Honest ! Why you’re enough to 
turn the stomach of a hog. Takes up with honesty, 
and wants to cheat his old pal. A fine old honest 
seven years you’ve been having, I’ll bet. You couldn’t 
bring the blooming desert with you, could you, 
William ? but I guess you cleaned it out. The next 
white man that goes there won’t find many pickings 
left. I wouldn’t bear a family resemblance to you 
and travel in them parts, not much I wouldn’t. 
Honest ! Here, you’ve got a drink of something on 
the premises ? Let me get the taste of that out of 
my mouth.” 

He wheeled his chair to a sideboard, and helped 
himself from a decanter and a syphon which stood 
there, and having drunk with an air of indignant 
disgust, returned. 

** Look here,” he began again, “ when I want that 
kind of stuff thrown at me I’ll take up a location or" 
a piece of waste land, and stick up a sign-board tell- 
ing the folks that rubbish can be shot there. Fetch 
them bonds out.” 

“ Of what use will they be to you, Gilead ? ” Harry 
asked, beginning to find a certain grim humour in 
the situation, and rather to his own surprise enjoy- 
ing it. 

‘‘That’s my business,” Gilead responded. “We 
ain’t so all-fired clever as you are, but we 
managed to do a bit of business in your absence, 


XVII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 209 

William. We're doing a bit now, and if you didn't 
want to play these mule games we could make it 
worth your while to be in it, big bug as you're 
grown." 

Harry drew his chair a little closer, and suppressing 
a fleeting desire to take Mr. Gilfoil by the throat 
and shake the life out of him, spoke with a semblance 
, of awakened interest. 

1 “ Could you really, Gilead } " 

“Yes, sirre, I could," Gilead answered. “ The first 
thing you've got to do is to plank out them bonds." 

“ Come now, Gilead," said Harry, “ what's the new 
game ? " 

We’ll wind up the old one first," said the tena- 
cious Gilead. “ Fork out them bonds." 

“ I don’t think I shall do that yet, Gilead," Harry 
answered ; ‘‘ but if you have anything big enough to 
i tempt me " 

i “We’ll talk about that afterwards," Mr. Gilfoil 
I interposed, with his wicked white face close to his 
I companion’s. 

“ Very well," said Harry, rising anew. “ As you 
please. You have forgotten one thing. It would not 
suit my present game, Gilead, to have these bonds 
put upon the market." 

“ That," said Gilead emphatically, “ is the first piece 
of straight talk you’ve done. If you'd seen fit to 
meet me in that sperrit all along we might ha' saved 
both time and temper. What wi/l suit your present 
game ? " 

“ The old plan won't suit my game, Gilead. The 
I new one might. Let’s know all about it." 


P 


210 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Let's make a bargain,” said Gilead. ‘‘If the bonds 
ain’t to go onto the market we can take care of ’em 
just as well as you can, and we’re game to do it. 
You can hand the whole lot of ’em over into our safe 
keeping, and then we’ll talk to you. I’m not going 
to say a word about that sort of business here. You 
come to my shanty. I’ll have the other boys to meet 
you. You can hand the things over formal, and 
everybody will know who’s got ’em. It will be all 
square and above board, and then, if there’s any fur- 
ther business to be done, we’ll talk it over. I've i 
never so much as hinted, William, that we sha’n’t be ' 
glad to have you back again. We can make it worth ' 
your while this time, if we couldn’t before, and IVe : 
always given you full credit for your abilities. You 
come to me to-morrow, twelve o’clock at noon, 112 ij 
Fitzroy Street. G. C. G. over the top bell.” | 

“ Good ! ” said Harry, “ I’ll be there.” 

“You’ll bring the bonds along with you ” asked | 
Gilead. “ Now mind, this is the last time of asking. 

If you’re going to be dodgy with us we shall make ; 
you real sick, William. I shall conduct that party 
personally, you take my word for it.” 

“ I understand,” said Harry quietly. “ You shall 
have the bonds to-morrow.” 

Gilead took his leave, wheeled himself to the lift, 
was lowered to the ground floor, and was assisted to 
the pavement. ' 

M. Vergueil, with a face of consummate innocence, 
had descended two minutes before him, and now 
stood contemplating the evening prospect in the 
street. Two men of decent and respectable aspect - 


XVlI.j 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


211 


stood smoking and chatting on the opposite pave- 
ment M. Vergueil laid a forefinger on his lower lip, 
and a few seconds later one of the men opposite did 
the same. The foreigner moved courteously on one 
side to allow Mr. GilfoiFs little carriage to. be carried 
past him. He laid his finger on his underlip again. 
Mr. Gilfoil was lifted into a four-wheeler, and the 
go-cart being placed on the top of the vehicle, he was 
driven away. The two men on the opposite side of 
the way got into a hansom which crawled up with 
a casual air at that moment, and without giving 
instructions to the driver, set off leisurely in the same 
direction. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


- Mr, Gilead C. Gilfoil when at home permitted 
himself to suffer from no lack of occupation. He was 
a gentleman of varied pursuits and employments, and 
amongst other things he took a considerable interest 
in chemistry. Living upon the second floor, he had 
caused a small laboratory to be erected on the leads 
outside his sitting-room window at the back of the 
house — a mere box built of corrugated iron. It was 
set against the dead wall of the house, but admitted 
light and air on three sides. 

On the day after his interview with Ronald Morton 
Mr. Gilfoil sat in this retreat engaged in an occupation 
of considerable nicety. A curious atmosphere per- 
vaded the little chamber, and the two side windows 
and that in the door were thrown wide open to allow 
free passage to the air. Mr. Gilfoil had before him 
a glass bottle with a screw stopper, and four little 
objects in vulcanite which resembled pocket pencils. 
At the butt of each of these was a small polished 
knob of nickel, running in a slot with a curve at the 


XVIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 213 

base, and at the top a diminishing point of the same 
metal. Mr. Gilfoil unscrewed the tips, revealing in 
each case the top of a needle-pointed glass syringe. 
He tested the working of these small instruments with 
great delicacy, and finding them act to his satisfaction, 
rang an electric bell which stood within easy reach 
of his hand. The summons was answered by Miss 
Priscilla Gilfoil, who wrinkled the bridge of her nose 
in disgust at the odour of the place. 

" I never knew in all my life such a man for sitting 
among smells as you are. The place smells as if it 
was full of rotten apples. Well, I do declare, youVe 
got them murderous little things in hand again. All 
I hope is you won’t be able to make ’em work.” 

They’ll work this time,” said Gilead placidly. He 
took one of them in his hand, and surveyed it with 
the complacency of a successful inventor. ^‘You 
bring me a tumbler o' clear water.” 

The girl obeyed, and stood by while Gilead tested 
the syringes, filling them by suction, and expelling 
the water with great force and directness in a thin jet. 

“ That’s the latest scent-squirt,” said Gilead smiling. 
“ The Lady’s Surprise I mean to call it. You’ll see it 
in all the shop windows by’n by. Gentleman asks 
you for the loan of a pencil, you unscrew the tip for 
him, he bends over thinking it’s a new invention, and 
then you get your little joke quite easy. Look here, 
it’ll throw a jet ten feet, and it carries as straight 
as a rifle, and it don’t waste the thousandth part of 
a spot.” 

Priscilla watched his illustration of the virtues of 
the instrument with a face of stern disapproval. 


214 he fell among thieves. [chap. 

‘‘ I don’t think,” she said, “ there’s another man 
alive fiendish enough to think of such a thing.” 

“ Don’t you waste your time in compliments. You 
fetch me that glass mask and my breathing tube. 
You’ll find 'em both in the box under the bed.” 

‘‘ What are you going to fill those things with, 
Gilead ? ” the girl asked sternly. 

Eau de Cologne, my darling,” returned Gilead, 
with a smile of amusement at his own retort. “You 
get them things. Bring ’em to me, and then clear 
out.” 

The girl retired, with a toss of the head, with which 
she seemed to resign herself to unmeasured folly. In 
her absence Gilead screwed to the edge of the table a 
revolving fan, and tested its action with as much care 
and precision as he had shown in all his former move- 
ments. Priscilla by and by brought back the articles 
for which he had despatched her, and still wrinkling 
her nose at the odour of the place, assisted him in 
putting on the mask, and placed the end of the 
breathing tube across the window ledge. When this 
operation was completed he dismissed her with a wave 
of the hand. The girl retired, closing behind her the 
French windows which admitted from the leads to 
the sitting-room. Gilead, drawing on a pair of gloves 
of goldbeater skin, examined them minutely, and 
discovering them to be quite flawless, unscrewed the 
stopper of the bottle before him, and filled each of the 
syringes in turn from its contents, all his motions 
being marked by the finest delicacy and care. He 
restoppered the bottle, and restored its original cover- 
ings of oiled silk and wash-leather. He wiped the 


XVII l] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


215 


point of each syringe with a clean fragment of an old 
cambric handkerchief, which he burned in a crucible 
stove in one corner of the apartment. Then having . 
screwed on the caps of the syringes he set the fan in 
motion, producing a strong current of air. 

After two minutes of this he rang again, and 
Priscilla re-entered. Gilead, with his features oddly 
distorted behind his mask, lifted his blanched hands 
towards his head. The girl understood the gesture, 
and assisted him to remove the mask and the breath- 
ing tube attached to it. 

“ I think,” said Gilead, “we Ve fixed it this time.” 

“I don't see what you want the murderous things 
at all for,” said Priscilla. She was a girl who adhered 
to ideas and phrases. 

“ Don't you ? " Gilead answered in a tone of 
badinage. “ Well, I do, and perhaps you'll make that 
enough for you.” 

His success had inspired him with an unusual good 
temper, and Priscilla, after the fashion of her sex, took 
advantage of the fact, and pursued the theme further 
than she ordinarily would have dared to do. 

“ If one of them gashly things was found about you, 
Gilead, you’d get into trouble. You can't have any 
but wicked uses for 'em.” 

“All right, my dear,” returned Gilead. “Chatter 
away if it pleases you.” 

“Well, what good are they, any way.?” Priscilla 
demanded scornfully. 

“What good are they any way.?” Gilead echoed, 
baring his teeth and turning upon her with a sudden 
snarl. “ What good are they .? I'll tell you what 


2i6 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


good they are. Tm a worthless cripple, dead, or as 
good as dead, from the hips down, and with one of 
these in my fingers Tm a match, and more than 
a match, for the biggest hell-raker Texas ever bred.” 
He took one of the syringes in his thumb and finger, 
and toyed with it. As he did so his complacency 
returned, but it was hard to say whether his expression 
were uglier in his rage or in his good humour. “ There 
ain’t no harm in taking a pencil-case out of your 
pocket, is there, my darling } Suppose I find myself 
in a tight corner some day. Suppose I find some 
brawny villain towering over me with a bowie or a six 
shooter, tellin’ me he’s going to have my blood. 
There ain’t no harm in screwing this little cap off, is 
there ? Not if you sit very calm and quiet, and look 
scared. But it’s sudden death, my darling. It’s only 
to be used in extremity, because sudden death to 
anybody is dangerous, almost anywhere. But it’s a 
sweet invention.” 

Priscilla looked at him with an expression half 
alarmed and half wondering, and was turning away 
with a gesture of the head when he addressed her 
again. 

“ Move that table,” he said, and let me get out of 
this. Now open the door. Help me across this bit 
of a ridge. There we are.” 

He had laid the four innocent-looking, deadly 
things on a handkerchief in his lap, and now, having 
gained the sitting-room, he wheeled himself to the 
table, where he took up a cigarette case of Russia 
leather, in which he stowed the syringes away. 

Then he took up a copy of that month’s Scientific 


XVIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 217 

Quarterly y and having lit his pipe and bestowed him- 
self in a comfortable light, became absorbed in the 
perusal of an article on heat as a pain-relieving agent. 
After some half-hour he laid the magazine upon his 
knees, and looked up at Priscilla, who sat near 
him sewing. 

“ Upon my word,^' he said, “it’s real lovely to see 
what science is doing nowadays for the relief of 
human suffering.” 

“And upon ;//j/word,” Priscilla answered, “you’re a 
curious sort of mixture, Gilead.” 

“ I’m dead again the infliction of pain. Perhaps 
I’ve had enough of it myself to make me tender about 
it. There ain’t no pain in these things,” indicating 
the cigarette case in his pocket by a motion of the 
thumb. “ If you’ve got to kill anybody, kill him 
clean and don’t hurt him.” 

The conversation was interrupted by a ring of the 
bell. 

“ I reckon that’ll be Willie,” said Gilead, consulting 
his watch. 

“ Willie ? ” answered Priscilla. “ Willie who ? ” 

“Willie Reid,” said Gilead. 

“ Of all the fools I’ve ever known, when you take 
an idea in your head you’re the biggest. That man’s 
no more Willie Reid than I am. You’re just walking 
head forward into some trap or other.” 

“Trap! you chattering idiot!” snarled Gilead. 
“Didn’t Willie Reid go up country in Turkey.^ 
Didn’t Ronald Morton start where Willie Reid left 
off? Didn’t I get a letter from him under that name ? 
Did anybody but Willie Reid know where them 


2i8 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

bonds were ? And hasn’t Ronald Morton got ’em 
now, and didn’t he try all he knew to stick to ’em ? 
Talk to me, you petticoated jackass ! Git !” 

“ Very well,” said Priscilla. “ Go your own way, and 
when you come to pay for it you say I told you.” 

A rap at the door put an end to this brotherly and 
sisterly discourse, and the house servant presented a 
card on which was engraved the name of Mr. Ronald 
Morton. 

“ Show the gentleman up,” said Gilead. “ And you ” 
— turning to Priscilla — “ get aout.” 

She obeyed the injunction thus courteously given, 
and a second or two later Harry Wynne entered with 
a neatly-folded parcel in his hands. 

“ Them the bonds ? ” asked Gilead, with no pre- 
liminary greeting. 

“ These are the bonds, Gilead,” his visitor answered, 
with a perfect show of ease and good humour. 

“ They make an uncommon small parcel, William, 
Let’s have a look at ’em. There’s nothing but 
Austrians here. Where’s the Russians and the 
Italians .?” 

“All in good time, Gilead,” said Harry. “These 
are all that were left in London.” 

“ What about those on the Continent ? ” 

“ All in good time,” Harry repeated. “ Rome wasn’t 
built in a day.” 

“ You’ll have to get ’em, Willie.” 

“ Of course I shall get them.” 

At this moment the rumbling noise of a vehicle in 
the street, which had been growing more and more 
clearly audible for a minute past, ceased at the door. 


XVIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


219 


Here’s the Co./’ said Gilead. “ They’re a bit 
earlier than I expected. If you hadn’t gone galli- 
vantin’ off to Asia, old man, we shouldn’t ha’ wanted 
any Co. There’s no gettin’ rid of ’em now. They 
haven’t put more than eight hundred into the business 
altogether, and they take three-fifths of the whole 
profits between ’em. That’s the curse of poverty, 
William. Ever sence you went away it’s me that’s 
found the brains and run the risk. But I’ve never 
been a capitalist. I cayn’t keep money. I alius fritter 
it away on some blamed invention or another. I’ve 
got a regular heap of patents, but they don’t gee, none 
of ’em, somehow. I cayn’t get about much, William. 
I’m at a great disadvantage.” 

The housemaid announced Captain Heaton, Mr. 
Whale, and Mr. Butterfield, and these gentlemen, 
immediately following upon her footsteps, presented 
themselves smilingly at the door. 

“ Come in,” said Gilead. “ Be seated, gentlemen.” 
He waited until the door was closed, and listened 
till the swift rattle of the retreating housemaid’s 
dress had faded out of hearing. “ I suppose,” he said, 
then, with a wry smile, “there ain’t no need to intro- 
duce you gentlemen ? ” 

“ I think not,” said Harry. “ I have met Captain 
Heaton and Mr. Whale quite recently, and I think I 
remember Mr. Butterfield.” 

“ I think,” said Mr. Butterfield, oleagenous as ever, 
“ that I should myself have recognised Mr. Reid any- 
where.” He was anxious to display his perspicacity, 
and not unwilling to crow a little over his colleagues, 
who had been a little in doubt. 


220 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Mr. Butterfield was beginning to display a ten- 
dency to baldness, and looked, if anything, a trifle 
more than ever representative of the prosperous and 
intelligent British tradesman. Something had hap- 
pened to his teeth, and when he smiled, as he did 
pretty constantly throughout the interview, he made 
so large an auriferous display that he seemed to pro- 
mise well for mining purposes. 

The amateur detective was at first hand put to it to 
maintain his own smiling demeanour in Mr. Butter- 
field’s presence, and for one minute his blood actually 
boiled at the memory of that worthy’s virtuous in- 
dignation at their last interview. But reflecting that 
every minute brought him nearer to his own triumph 
and his enemies’ discomfiture, he controlled himself. 

“ I am glad to see,” said Captain Heaton, “ that 
Mr. Reid has consented to come round. I think 
we may honestly congratulate both ourselves and 
him on the decision at which he has arrived.” 

It was the gallant Captain’s part informally to 
take the chair on such occasions as the present, and 
to make little business speeches of this sort, tem- 
pered by his own polished society airs. 

‘‘ In the old days,” said Mr. Butterfield, with an 
almost sentimental aspect, “ our relations with Mr. 
Reid were of so cordial a nature, and were so pro- 
fitable to all parties concerned ” here he came out 

of reverie, and rubbed his hands in a rich enjoyment 
in the memory of old profits — “ that we may all con- 
sider ourselves fortunate in the renewal of our ancient 
ties.” 

“Shall we get to business, gentlemen said Harry, 


XVIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


221 


with a suavity equalling the good man’s own. “ Mr. 
Gilfoil has at present in his possession all the bonds 
on which I have as yet been able to lay my hands. 
You must take that as an earnest of good faith. And 
now I suppose that I am not to be left out in the cold ? 
Our ingenious friend Gilead informs me that there is 
a better thing on to-day than you ever had before, 
and that my services, if not exactly necessary, will 
at least be acceptable.” 

“ I promised,” said Gilead, ‘‘ to take Willie in if he ' 
did the square thing ; but I want to put it on a clear 
understanding. If there’s any more hanky-panky on 
his part he’ll have to take the risk.” 

‘‘ Gentlemen,” said Harry, “ I accept the risk. I 
shall take a perfectly straight course, I promise you.” 

“ Mr. Reid’s experience and abilities,” said Captain 
Heaton, “will be of the greatest service to us. He 
distinctly understands what is expected from him in 
the way of fealty and in the way of business fairness. 

I think,” he added, with the conscious ease of victory, 
“ that our young friend has already been sufficiently 
I admonished. We have shown him — in a friendly 
; way, I trust, and not in a manner calculated to excite 
rancour — that we can hold our own — and I think in 
future we may hope to continue those cordial relations 
which we all found so agreeable years ago.” 

“Hear, hear!” said Hump. Mr. Butterfield echoed 
the encomium, and added, “Very neatly turned.” 

“ Now, gentlemen,” said the Captain, “ I shall pro- 
pose that Mr. Reid be admitted to our councils. 
Those who are in favour of that proposition will 
signify the same by a show of hands. Carried 


222 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

unanimously. Mr. Reid, you are once more welcome 
back to the bosom of the family.” 

Gilead wheeled himself to a cupboard, and drew 
forth two bottles of champagne, of which Mr. Whale 
relieved him. Then he produced glasses, and wheeled 
himself back to the centre table. Hump produced a 
pocket champagne-opener, and opened the bottles 
with professional skill. 

‘‘An excellent wine,” said Mr. Butterfield. “An 
excellent wine.” 

“ It isn’t Hump’s private brand,” said Harry, and 
at this there was a general laugh, for everybody sup- 
posed himself to recognise the allusion. 

“ Now,” said Mr. Butterfield drawing out his watch, 
harmony is happily restored. My time happens to 
be unusually valuable this morning. Can we get to 
business ? ” 

“ You have a sample, Gilead,” said Captain Heaton. 

“ Yes,” said Gilead, “ I’ve got one. Proof after 
letters. Here it is.” 

He produced from an inner pocket a crisp bank- 
note of the Bank of France for one hundred francs 
and handed it to Harry, who examined it with great 
minuteness. Gilead, observing - the intentness with 
which he pored upon it, shot away in his wheeled 
chair to a corner of the room, and returning with a 
large magnifying glass laid it on the table. 

“ I never found anything in this world,” said Gilead 
philosophically, “that got to be any the better for 
being bragged about, but that’s as fine a piece of 
engraving work as ever I put a tool on.” 

“ Let Mr. Reid compare it with one of the originals,” 


XVIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


223 


said Butterfield. He drew one of the originals from 
his own pocket-book and laid it beside the forgery. 

The detection of forged bank-notes had never been 
any part of Harry Wynne’s business, and the experts 
had already succeeded where he failed. But after a 
searching and minute examination he could discover 
no difference between the false note and the real. 
The whole party awaited his judgment with interest, 
and even with some show of anxiety. Gilead appeared 
to take umbrage at the length and closeness of the 
examination. 

‘‘You can look, William. You won’t find nothing 
the matter with my work. If there is a weak point 
it’s the paper.” 

It was not Harry’s cue to express his own senti- 
ments. He was there to in^personate Mr. William 
Reid, who would doubtless have been much less 
surprised than he was at the excellence of the 
imitation. 

“ It isn’t bad,” he said. “A man would have to be 
suspicious to suspect.” 

This was accepted by them all as a warm encomium 
on the work. 

“ These fellows,” said Gilead with a tone and 
gesture scarcely respectful to his colleagues ; “ these 
fellows were in such a cursed hurry to get ’em on the 
market that they wouldn’t wait to make a big splash 
with ’em. They’ve got out two small parcels, and 
though there’s nothing been heard up to the present, we 
don’t know at any minute that we mayn’t get winded. 
I b’leeve in decision, and I think, Willie, I shall have 
you along with me. Pluck and patience are the horses 


224 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


for my money, and Fm for making one stroke now 
everything’s ready, that’ll pay us for all outlay. Gentle- 
men,” he continued, solemnly turning round to face 
his three partners, I’m game to bet a thousand 
dollars to a Key West orange that William sides with 
me. It’s no use frittering, William, is it ? ” 

“ Not a bit,” said Harry decisively. “ Take the 
thing by the neck and have done with it.” 

“You see, gentlemen!” said Gilead. “Now look 
here, Willie, my proposal all along has been to get one 
smart bold man. Let him do all the Booro de Change 
in London in a single day. Never more than a 
thousand francs anywhere. Take the night mail to 
Paris, put in a day’s work there about the Pally Ryal, 
restorongs, banks, money-changers, everywhere, and 
after that lie quiet. A real live man like you can 
raise ten thousand sterling in that way. Reckon the 
exs. and loss on stones at two thousand pounds, that 
leaves a clear profit of eight thousand, and that’s as 
much as we’ve got a right to expect for one while.” 

“ If Mr. Reid can do business at that rate ” 

said Mr. Butterfield. 

“ Mr. Reid’s done business at that rate,” said Gilead. 
“At that rate and better. Why, nine year ago, with 
them hundred rouble notes, he passed ’em by the 
bushel. That was before any o’ you people knew 
him. I’m derned if I knew him myself when he came 
home. That fat old German was the cleverest bit of 
make-up you ever did, William.” 

“ These reminiscences,” said Mr. Butterfield, “ are 
extremely gratifying, but I am unfortunately pressed 
by other business. Can we come to an understand- 


XVIII.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


225 


ing as to time ? When can you be ready, Mr. 
Gilfoil .? ” 

“I cayn’t tell exactly,” Gilead answered; ‘‘but I 
think you may reckon on having enough to begin 
the London boom with on Saturday morning. If 
William can come down to me on Friday night at 
twelve I think I can be ready.” 

“ I am engaged on Friday night,” said Harry, whose 
one anxiety was not to appear too anxious. 

“Come, come, Mr. Reid,” said Heaton, “this is 
serious business. It is very important, as you know, 
that the work should be done on Saturday and 
Sunday. I am afraid we were guilty of an indiscretion 
in opening with the small quantities we placed at Spa 
and Monte Carlo. We have heard nothing, but we 
may hear at any moment. We can afford to lose no 
time, and you must not allow any mere social engage- 
ments to keep you away.” 

“ Very well,” said Harry. “ I must keep my en- 
gagement, but ril tell you what Til do. I will leave 
word that any message sent to me at the hotel shall 
be instantaneously delivered by my secretary wherever 
I may be.” 

“Very well,” said Gilead. “You’ll simply get the 
words ‘ Proofs ready.’ Fll give you the address now. 
Fourteen Wexford Row, Clerkenwell. It’s just past 
Myddelton Square going towards Sadler’s Wells. 
Butterfield’s name is on the door. You just knock twice 
gently, you needn’t make no row. We’ll hear you.” 

“ Fourteen Wexford Row, Clerkenwell,” said Harry. 
“ I shall remember. There’s nothing more for the 
present, I suppose ? ” 

Q 


226 KE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

‘‘ Nothing more for the present, I think,” said Mr. 
Butterfield rising. 

There was a cordial hand-shaking all round, and 
the amateur detective took his leave. 

There were two young men standing at the door of 
the house as he descended the stairs. They stood on 
one side for him to pass, and when he had got some 
score of yards away one of them retired to his ov/n 
room on the ground floor, and the other sauntered 
after the disappearing figure and never lost sight of it 
until the Westminster Hotel was reached. 

Mr. Butterfield was driven away with his companions 
in the little brougham which awaited him at the door, 
and Miss Priscilla went back to Gilead. 

“ Well she said in a tone of mocking inquiry. 

‘‘Well!” answered Gilead drily. 

“ I suppose youVe let that hulkin’ stranger into all 
your secrets.” 

“You make me sick,” said Gilead. “ Go away.” 

“ Pm going,” she answered, and Gilead noticed for 
the first time that she was attired for the streets and 
that she carried a small black hand-bag. 

“You are, are you.^” Gilead responded. “And 
where do you suppose you’re going to ? ” 

“ I’m going away for a day — or two, perhaps,” she 
answered. “ Perhaps Pm going to Manchester.” 

“ What are you going to Manchester for ? ” Gilead 
asked. 

“ You don’t tell me your business,” Priscilla re- 
sponded, “ and I sha’n’t tell you mine. Good morning 
Gilead.” 

Gilead sat tugging at his goat tuft, staring at her 


XVIII.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 227 

with his dead blue eyes, and she looked back at him 
with a smile of peculiar meaning. Before either of 
them spoke again, the maid appeared to say that the 
cab was ready, and that the portmanteau had already 
been taken down stairs. 

“ Good-bye, Gilead,” said Priscilla. “ I dare say I 
shall be back to-morrow.” 

“ Don't you hurry gn my account, darling,'' Gilead 
answered. The tone was intended for the maid's 
ears, and Priscilla received the viperous look which 
accompanied it with no change in the expression 
she wore. 

She tripped down stairs, settled herself composedly 
in the cab, and drove away. She had not gone a 
hundred yards before she opened the small handbag, 
and took from it a lady’s card. “Mrs. Ronald 
Morton, nee Melikofif, The Hulme, St. Peters.'' 

“I reckon,'’ said Priscilla, she ought to know 
Willie Reid, if I don't,” and with that she returned the 
card and closed the black bag with a decisive snap. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


For three days Inthia had been in trouble. Her 
earliest interview with the returned wanderer had 
brought disturbance with it, but that had had «time 
to subside, and she had succeeded in persuading her- 
self that she had felt nothing but the shock of meeting 
the man who had stood by Harry’s side at the 
moment of his death. She wilfully obscured her 
memory of the strange half-recognition which had 
so amazed and startled her. There was no need for 
her to arrange her own conclusions in set form. They 
were already too definite and too assured. Harry 
was dead, and Ronald Morton’s likeness to him could 
be no more than fortuitous. She dreaded to speak 
of the likeness, and was all the more unwilling to 
break silence because nobody else had remarked it. 
The old Earl, Lord Hounes, Lady McCorquodale 
and Humphrey Frost had all known Harry so inti- 
mately, that if the likeness she had found between him 
and Ronald Morton had been more than fanciful, 
they would surely have observed it. 


CHAP. XIX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


229 


It was none the less, but perhaps all the more, 
troublesome to her on this account. She carried the 
thought of it, like a guilty secret, in her blameless 
breast. Her mind dwelt more than ever on the 
memory of her boy lover, and she awoke from her 
own thoughts in an actual terror to find that Harry 
had taken the form, the voice, the bearing of Ronald 
Morton. The very thoughts that did homage to 
the sacred dead linked themselves about this mere 
stranger. She tried to hide herself in the memory 
of Harry, and recalled eagerly a thousand trifles of 
which she had not thought since his death. She 
strove to fence herself about with these recollections, 
but the bronzed face looked through them, or some 
sudden and unbidden note of Morton’s voice sounded 
in her ears in place of the tones she strove to recall. 
Her very devotion led her unconsciously to a thou- 
sand repetitions of this airy infidelity. 

She was a woman of rare common sense, and made 
a strong fight against her fancies, refusing for a time 
to admit that they troubled her at all, and for a while 
she could succeed in expelling them from her mind. 
But at length, by mere force of persistence, they 
conquered her, and Harry Wynne and Ronald Morton 
became actually intertwined. 

One natural result of all this was a fear of again 
encountering, the traveller. She was averse to the 
social subterfuges employed by so many of her sex, 
and had never counterfeited a headache in her life. 
There was no other excuse than illness to fall back 
upon, and she was pledged for Lady Mabel’s ball. 
She felt that she would infinitely prefer not to meet 


230 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


Ronald Morton again, and she resolved that if the 
meeting were unescapable, as it seemed to be, it 
should at least be as transitory as she could make it. 

Thursday came, and with it came Lady Mabel, 
attired for the Archbishop’s garden party. She sailed 
into Inthia’s room, beaming with good humour. 

“ My dear,” she said, holding both hands behind 
her, and tiptoeing over Inthia as she spoke, ‘‘ I am 
quite fascinated by our new lion. I have been hunt- 
ing everywhere to get a portrait of him, and only 
ten minutes ago I succeeded. I was driving through 
Ebury-street when it occurred to me to try once 
more at Downey’s. The photograph was not for 
sale, and I had to wheedle for it. Isn’t he a superb 
creature — the lion ? Doesn’t he carry the airs of his 
deserts with him } ” 

She drew the photograph from its envelope, and 
held it aloft in her delicately-gloved fingers, gazing 
at it with a droll affectation of rapture. Inthia 
reached out a hand for it, but her ladyship waltzed 
away. 

‘‘No, no! I can’t part with my lion. You may 
take a peep at him through the bars.” She held her 
fingers across the photograph to simulate the bars. 
“ He frightened you terribly on Monday, but after 
all I am disposed to fancy that there is very 
little danger about him. Inthia, my dear, you are 
blushing. 

“Nonsense,” said Inthia feebly. “Let me look at 
it.” 

Lady Mabel surrendered the photograph, and Inthia, 
resting it against a vase upon the mantelpiece, fell to 


XIX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 231 

studying it so earnestly that in the first three seconds 
she forgot her friend’s presence. The good-hearted and 
agreeable rattlepate, her companion, stood by with an 
aspect of demure mischief, and waited. Inthia folded 
her hands behind her, and her eyes began to dream. 
She looked long and intently at the portrait, and 
awoke from her fancies with a sigh, at which Lady 
Mabel broke into a peal of fairy laughter. Inthia 
met her look of raillery with grave self-possession. 

“ There is something in the face,” she said, “ which 
puzzles me. I seem to know it well, but the likeness 
constantly evades me.” 

She hated to be dishonest, but she was by no means 
disposed to make Lady Mabel a partaker of her 
secret. With the face of Ronald Morton actually 
pictured before her, she seemed to read Harry in 
every lineament. The eyes, frank and honest, and 
at once tender and courageous, were Harry’s to the 
life. The brow was Harry’s. The curling beard and 
heavy moustache obscured the lower outlines of the 
face, and gave them a manliness and decision foreign 
to the remembrances, yet very far from being contra- 
dictory of them. Over and over again in looking on 
the portrait, her fancy effaced all differences, and 
the smooth, boyish countenance looked out at her 
unchanged. 

Lady Mabel fluttered off to find Lady McCorquo- 
dale, and Inthia was left alone. She studied the 
photograph anew, until a half angry gust of defensive 
shame touched her, and she put it resolutely away. 
She was not going to be disloyal to her memories 
because of any likeness, howsoever striking, and she 


232 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

began to think that Ronald Morton was exciting a 
dangerous interest in her mind. 

Do what she would she thought of him. Her 
resolutions were the merest ropes of sand, and, how- 
ever industriously she wove them, they broke at the 
first touch. The mere memory of Ronald Morton’s 
voice and eyes undid .her strongest resolve, and her 
whole day was passed in thinking of him, and his 
strange resemblance to Harry, and in the effort to 
expel him from her thoughts. 

The night passed in much the same fashion, and 
long before the hour came at which it was necessary to 
dress for Lady Mabel’s ball, her disinclination to meet 
him had grown into something like an actual fear. 
What she dreaded most of all was a certain secret 
complacency which underlay her reluctance to en- 
counter him. She feared the meeting, and yet there 
was pleasure in the thought of it. She took herself 
seriously to task, but with no effect. She could not 
dismiss from her own thoughts the interest the 
stranger bred there. 

The hour arrived, and she reached the ball-room in 
a flutter of suppressed excitement. 

“ The lion,” said Lady Mabel, whispering her, is 
the best, the most amiable and punctual of lions. He 
is here already, most unlionlike in modesty. One 
can see that he is not experimente — he has not 
learned the value of his name.” 

Lady Mabel’s rooms as yet gave but a half promise 
of the condition of fashionable crush they were 
destined to reach an hour later, and Inthia had not 
been in the house five minutes when she found Ronald 


XIX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


233 


Morton bending over her. He was asking for a 
dance, and she felt like a raw girl on her first intro- 
duction to the world. She had prepared herself for 
this, and had meant, if the request were proffered, to 
meet it with any excuse the moment might afford, but 
almost before she knew it she had accepted, and was 
pencilling Mr. Ronald Morton’s name upon her card 
with trembling fingers. She had not even enough of 
the self-protective instinct left to put him far down on 
the list in the hope of escaping before the time came. 
She was a little surprised to discover that the desire 
to escape had vanished. 

Humphrey Frost came to claim her for a quadrille, 
and this gave her time to steady herself a little, but 
she had never known the dance to pass with so much 
swiftness. The young people of to-day, even the 
staidest of them, are not apt to look on the quadrille 
as a source of delirious excitement, but to Inthia’s 
fancy it was whirled through with an almost in- 
decorous celerity. In her dread of the approaching 
waltz she would have taken it at a funeral pace, and 
even that might have seemed too quick for her. 

She was perfectly self-possessed to all outward 
appearances when she stood up for the waltz, with 
Ronald Morton’s arm about her waist, but her heart 
was actually rioting in her bosom. The band had 
sounded its lively flourish of warning, and with its 
first plunge into the waltz movement the two floated 
away together. The Asiatic deserts are not the best 
dancing school in the world, and Harry, in his eager- 
ness to secure Inthia for a partner, had overlooked 
the fact that he had not so much as seen a dance for 


234 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[chap. 


the last seven years. In the first half-dozen steps he ^ 
floundered, and striving to recover himself canoncd 5 
against a ponderous elderly gentleman who glared at \ 
him angrily in return. j 

I beg your pardon, Miss Grey,” he murmured. 

“ This is not an experiment upon which I should have ] 
ventured. I have spoiled your dance for you, and I 
am very sorry.” | 

He extricated her rather clumsily from the whirling . 
crowd, and proffered her his arm. She took it, hardly 
knowing what she did, and unconscious of the smiles 
which her companion’s failure excited. Harry was as 
unconscious as herself, for tke mere contact of her ' 
hand upon his arm, though it rested there as light as ■ 
a snowflake, filled him with a splendid exultation. ' 
He was near to the end he had set before himself, i 
To-morrow he would proclaim his identity to the ' 
world, and at that moment no shadow of a doubt as i 
to Inthia’s reception of him rested on his mind. 

Before he well knew it they were walking alone in i 
the half gloom of a conservatory. She was the first ^ 
to discover that they had withdrawn from the crowd, 
and hastily removing her hand she murmured an in- ' 
articulate something, and turned away. She never 
knew, then or afterwards, if it were terror or the 
assurance of an almost awful joy which shook her as 
he laid his hand upon her shoulder. She turned 
towards him, and their eyes met. He was bending 
over her, and his look seemed to devour her. 

“Inthia!” he said. She gave no answer, but his 
eyes fascinated her. “ Don’t you know me ? ” 

He caught her swiftly as she was in the act of 


XIX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 235 

falling. He supported her with one arm about her 
waist, and the other beneath her head, and she lay in 
his arms like a drooping flower. Her face was colour- 
less, but there was no fear in his mind. He kissed 
her again and again. Her eyes opened, the colour 
flowed back to her face, and she threw both arms 
about him. 

“ I knew it,” she sobbed, ‘‘ I knew it. It was im- 
possible, and yet I knew it.” 

For a long time they clung to each other in a 
silence only broken by Inthia’s stifled sobs, and now 
and again a soothing murmur from Harry. 

“ I wanted to declare myself,” he said, ‘‘ from the 
first moment, but I had not the courage. When 
Hogan asked me to see Lord Hounes I consented, 
because you were to be away. You forgive me for 
that .? 

There was no need to ask. The clinging arms and 
fast flowing tears told all. 

“ I have strange things to tell you, darling, when 
you are strong enough to listen. I will not trouble 
you with them now.” 

“I am listening, dear,” she answered. “Tell me 
everything.” 

He found a seat for her, and threw open the con- 
servatory door, letting in the air of the balmy night 
from the garden. The moon, nearly at the full, hung 
low over the neighbouring roofs, and its light fell full 
upon her face. He seated himself beside her, and 
took her hands in his. ^ 

“ I had not meant to speak to-night,” he said, “ but 
I could not help it. I should have told the world 


236 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

to-morrow, and you first of all. I had a reason for 
the delay. I stayed away seven years to make an 
honourable life for myself. When I came home I 
found I had assumed the alias of a rascal, a thief and 
forger. But the hand of heaven was in it. He be- 
longed to the very gang which brought about my ruin, 
and when they learned that Ronald Morton was in 
London the scoundrels took me for their old com- 
panion. I encouraged their belief, and to-night 
shall have in my hands the actual proof of their last 
villainy. I shall punish the heartless rascals that 
parted you and me, and I shall do a service to the 
world at large. I am expecting every moment the 
message which will call me to them.’’ 

As if the words were the cue for Lady Mabel’s 
entrance she came into the conservatory at that 
moment, and caught sight of the couple sitting hand 
in hand. She started back for a mere second, and 
then advanced with an unusual frigidity of manner. 

“ Mr. Morton,” she said icily, ‘‘ your secretary has 
brought a note which he describes as being most 
urgent.” 

Harry thanked her, and took the missive from her 
hand. He tore it open, and read by the moonlight 
the simple words “ Proofs ready.” 

“My darling,” he said, turning to Inthia, “the 
message I expected.” 

At this endearing epithet her ladyship fairly stared. 

“ Inthia ! ” she breathed, in a tone of concentrated 
astonishment. 

Inthia rose and embraced her, half crying, half 
laughing. 


XIX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


237 


Mabel, you don't know what has happened. This 
is my cousin Harry come to life again." 

Her ladyship was stricken dumb. She was fluent 
enough as a rule, but for once in her life the power 
of speech deserted her. 

“ My dear Lady Mabel,” said Harry, “ it is true. 
I have had a reason for remaining unknown, but to- 
morrow morning all that will be over. I must go 
now. Good-bye, Inthia. God bless you, my darling. 
I shall see you in the morning. I must go. You 
know my reasons for it. Good-bye again, dear.” 

He had both her hands in his own, and even in 
Lady Mabel’s presence he could not .refrain from 
kissing them. A minute later the two women were 
left to themselves, Inthia repeated Harry’s story, and 
Lady Mabel had a rare feast of emotion. She cried 
for sympathy and laughed for joy, and in short gave 
way so completely that in a very little while it was 
Inthia’s offlce to calm her and to remind her of 
her absence from her guests. At this her volatile 
ladyship dried her tears, and producing a powder- 
puff* set to work to remove their traces on her own 
face. 

“ I am a fright, my darling, and I am sure you are 
another. Come with me to my rooms. We must 
really make ourselves presentable.” 

She led Inthia through the conservatory, and they 
escaped together by the servants’ staircase. 

Re-entering the ball-room five minutes later they 
were encountered at the door- way by Humphrey Frost, 
who wore an expression altogether enigmatic, half 
shocked, half amused, and wholly wonder-stricken. 


238 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

“Lady Mabel,” said LTost, “you have been enter- 
taining angels unawares.” 

“ We have indeed,” said Lady Mabel, whose butter- 
fly mind was dangerously charged with the news of 
the night. 

“ I have a curious surprise to give you.” 

“We have a curious surprisig to give you,” her 
ladyship answered with sparkling eyes. “ Let us see 
whose is the greater.” 

“Yours,” said Frost, becoming altogether serious, 
“would seem to be altogether agreeable. Mine, 1 am 
afraid, is not.” 

“ Let us know it. Nothing can dash our joy to- 
night. For once we are armed against disaster. 
Your looks are as a gaoler to bring forth some 
monstrous malefactor. Speak ! ” 

“You really ought to know — ” said Frost hesita- 
tingly. “ The fellow has left the house, and has walked 
clean into the trap the police have set for him.” 

“ The police ! ” said Lady Mabel. “ My house ! 
Of whom are you talking ? ” 

“I am really awfully sorry to say it,” said Frost 
with an irrepressible twinkle, “ but I am talking of 
your Asiatic lion.” 

Lady Mabels eyes danced at this, and she passed 
an arm through Inthia’s. 

“ What of the Asiatic lion } ” she asked innocently 
“ I promised him that he should not be hunted.” 

“He is being hunted with a vengeance,” Frost 
returned. “Let me tell you the plain story. You 
remember the bonds which belonged to me being 
stolen in transit between Boulogne and Calais ? They 


XIX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


239 


were stolen, as we know now, by two men, respectively 
named Gilead Gilfoil and William Reid. William 
Reid is a notorious forger, a skilled distributor of 
forged bank-notes, and is at this moment on his 
way to take up a packet of forged notes from his 
confederate.” 

What has all this to do with the Asiatic lion ? ” 
her ladyship demanded. 

‘‘ It sounds terrible,” said Frost. ‘‘ It reminds one 
of Barrington and the days of the Regency. William 
Reid, dear ladies, is no other than Ronald Morton.” 

'‘We have a prettier story than that,” said her 
ladyship. The career of the Asiatic lion shall come 
to a more agreeable close. From whom did you get 
this charming narrative, Mr. Frost ?” 

“ I got it,” said Frost gravely, " from an unimpeach- 
able source. It came to me a quarter of an hour 
since only from M. Vergueil, a member of the detec- 
tive staff of Paris, who has hunted this man and his 
comrades for seven years, and he will have them 
arrested by the English police to-night.” 

“Really,” cried Lady Mabel, “this is delightfully 
interesting, but you are a day behind the fair, Mr. 
Frost. Inthia and I knew this half-an-hour ago, Mr. 
Frost. No, you sha'n’t be plagued any longer, and in 
place of talking folly and making mystery about it, 
we ought to be on our knees and saying our prayers 
for thankfulness. Ronald Morton is not Willian 
Reid, Mr. Frost. He is Harry Wynne. He is not a 
confederate of these vile people, but is bringing to 
justice with his own hands the wicked wretches who 
ruined him seven years ago.” 


240 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES, [chap. xiX 


Frost looked from one to the other in profound 
astonishment, then with a stammered word of excuse 
turned away, struggled unceremoniously through the 
brilliant crowd which filled the ball-room, ran swiftly 
down the stairs, and dashing bare-headed into the 
street, hailed a passing hansom and leapt into it. 
He thrust a sovereign through the trap of the cab. 

“ Drive for your life ! he shouted. “ Clerken- 
well ! There may be a terrible fight,” he said to 
himself, before these men are captured. The police 
must know with whom they have to deal, or Harry 
may lose his life.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


When Mr. Butterfield chose his supplementary 
workshop in Clerkenwell he did it under the advice of 
his friend Captain Heaton, who was curiously careful as 
to the means of egress and ingress the place afforded. 
The house at fourteen Wexford Row was practi- 
cally open on all four sides. Parallel with Wexford 
Row, at the back of the house and its adjoining yard, 
ran an alley leading to a mews. On the right side 
of the house a narrow passage between high walls 
formed a means of communication between the alley 
and the street, and on the left side beyond the party- 
wall lay the yard of the neighbouring public-house. 
In the yard of number fourteen Mr. Butterfield erected 
a workshop, and the workshop opened on to the lane 
and the alley by means of doors purposely constructed, 
whilst access might be had to the public-house yard 
through a square low window. Some of Mr. Butter- 
field’s workmen had found a short way to their beer 
by means of that window, and the potman and land- 
lord of the house were conveniently familiar with 
their irruptions. 


R 


242 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

The astute Heaton had overlooked the fact that in 
multiplying opportunities for the dispersion of his 
workpeople in case of need, he had multiplied oppor- 
tunities for the entrance of any persons who might be 
seeking an unexpected interview with them. But one 
of the myrmidons of M. Vergueil having closely 
surveyed the ground, Monsieur had asked to have 
no fewer than ten men placed at his disposal. 
These ten were under the charge of an inspector 
who was proud to be associated with the dis- 
tinguished foreigner. Two of the men were posted 
in the bar-parlour of the public-house, two in the 
cab-yard at one end of the alley, and two at the 
entrance of that narrow thoroughfare. Wexford 
Row was patrolled by four, and the whole body 
was of course attired in plain clothes. The autho- 
rities had chosen their smartest men for the service, 
and had done their best to make the intended 
capture a certainty. 

Frost’s cabman, animated by the unusual fare paid 
him beforehand, drove madly until the packed traffic 
of Oxford-street brought him back to caution. In 
Hart-street and Theobald’s Road he was free to 
move again, and tore along at racing pace. In 
Exmouth-street and My ddleton -street the scattered 
costers’ stalls and the thin crowd spread about the 
horse road made him slow down once more, but in 
St. John-street-road Frost caught sight of the man 
of whom he was in pursuit in the act of discharging 
a cabman, and at once brought his own driver to a 
halt. He sprang from the cab, and advanced with 
both hands outstretched. 


XX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 243 

“ My aear old Wynne ! ” he said. ‘‘Welcome back 
again. Lady Mabel has told me everything.” 

“ Then Lady Mabel,” said Harry, “ has committed 
an indiscretion. I am heartily glad to see you, but 
I must leave you now. You can tell me to-morrow 
how you came to follow me. I have an engagement 
of the utmost importance.” 

“ I know that too,” Frost answered. “ I must come 
with you. You are putting yourself in danger.” 

“ I anticipate no great danger,” said Harry. “ I am 
armed, and I think I know my men.” 

“ The house,” Frost answered, “is to be surrounded 
by the police. You were to have been arrested with 
the others.” 

This tickled the returned wanderer, and he laughed 
aloud. 

“ There may be a melee,” Frost went on. “ One 
of the scoundrels is known to be desperate.” 

“ What brings you in it ? How do you come to 
know of it ? ” 

“ I am the owner of a heap of bonds these fellows 
stole seven years ago. I was told to-night that you 
were William Reid, and expected to see you in the 
dock to-morrow. There is no need now for you to 
move a step. The men are trapped already. You 
have the satisfaction of knowing you brought them 
all together. Let that be enough for you.” 

“ I want my share in the comedy,” said Harry. 
“ It promises better than I fancied.” 

M. Vergueil had seen too many amazing things 
in his life time to be easily surprised, but wandering 
warily from man to man of his detachment in com- 

R 2 


244 he fell among THIEVES. [chap. 

pany with the inspector, to see that all things were 
properly disposed, he found accused and accuser 
walking amicably arm in arm, and stood for a 
moment rooted in astonishment. Frost caught sight 
of him and beckoned him. He crossed over, and 
listened to the extraordinary narrative detailed to 
him as if it had been the most ordinary in the 
world, 

“Yes,” he said, ‘‘I think it will be well for Mr. 
Wynne to enter as if he had not seen us at all.” 

“ I had not expected your aid,” said Harry, but 
perhaps it is better as it is. Let me ask you not 
to permit your men to break in until I have secured 
possession of the notes.” 

“ Very good, sir,” said Vergueil. “ Your wishes shall 
be considered.” 

“ Shall I give you a signal ? ” asked Harry. 

“No, thank you,” returned Vergueil with extreme 
dryness. “We shall be aware of your proceedings.” 

“ I had not expected you to be so easily convinced,” 
said Frost to Vergueil when they were left alone. 

“ I had not expected you to be so easily con- 
vinced,” returned the detective. “We shall see. 
You do not know your man, Mr. Frost. There is 
no fox in the world who has so many devices. There 
is no actor on the stage who is his master in comedy. 
He invents like the great Dumas — better, for the 
people believe him.” 

Harry had already knocked at the door of number 
fourteen Wexford Row, and had been admitted. 
Vergueil, holding Frost by the sleeve, led him swiftly 
past the house, and shot into the walled lane which 


XX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 245 

lay beside it Half way towards the rear he paused, 
and spoke in a cautious whisper. 

“ There is a door which opens flush upon the room 
in which they all are met together. The room is 
surrounded, and there is no escape from it. If our 
friend is William Reid, we have him in spite of any 
trick which he may play. We shall give him no 
time to destroy our evidence. If he is Mr. Wynne, 
we shall be there to help him. Now, silence ! Do 
not breathe.” 

They moved on tiptoe to the door. The alley was 
black with the shadows of midnight, but there were 
two denser shadows in the midst of them. A sudden 
glare of light flashed out across the faces of Frost 
and his companion, and disappeared, but not a word 
was spoken. Two or three needle points of light 
showed redly through the crevices of the door. Ver- 
gueil, crouching, laid his ear against it, and listened. 
Frost placed himself opposite, and the two stood 
silent as a brace of statues. 

Harry, having knocked at the door, was kept wait- 
ing for a little while, and in the light of the street 
lamp near at hand he read upon the neatly engraved 
brass plate before him, ‘‘Butterfield, Jeweller, En- 
graver, &c. Office and Show Rooms, Conduit-street.” 
He was thinking how much the etcetera covered, 
when a cautious step sounded in the hall within, 
and the door was partially opened. It was secured 
by a chain, and the face of an elderly woman peered 
round it. 

“ Who is it } ” she asked. 

“Mr. Ronald Morton.” 


246 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


[CHAP. 


“All right, sir. Wait just half a minute.’’ She 
closed the door for the removal of the chain and then 
re-opening it to no greater width than was necessary 
for the admission of the visitor, secured it anew 
behind him. “ This way, sir. It’s dark, but the road’s 
quite level. The gentlemen’s expecting of you.” 

The whole quartette awaited him. 

^‘You’re punctual, William,” said Gilead, ‘'and so 
are we. The flimsy’s ready, old pardy.” 

Sitting in his wheeled chair beside the table, he 
made a motion with his hand, indicating a neat pile 
of paper which lay beside him. Mr. Butterfield laid 
a pair of caressing palms upon the upper sheet, and 
smiled. 

“ We have been looking over them,” said Captain 
Heaton. 'T don’t think I ever saw anything so flaw- 
less. Mr. Gilfoil certainly deserves to be congratu- 
lated on his success.” 

“ There’s a thousand of ’em,” said Gilead. “There’s 
a thousand more that ain’t quite dry, but they’ll be 
ready in the morning. You can start on these, and 
you can have the second batch for Paris. We should 
ha’ been ready a day earlier if the numberin’ machine 
hadn’t ha’ broken down.” 

" I’d better take charge of this lot,” said Harry. 

“ Butterfield’ll pack ’em for you,” returned Gilead. 
" He’ll do it neat. He’s used to it.” 

Mr. Butterfield smilingly obeyed this hint, but 
whilst he was still at work, and the others stood 
about him watching, they were all startled by a ring 
at the front door bell. Mr. Butterfield went ghastly 
white, and stared from one to another with his lips 


XX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 247 

drawn back in a frightened, attentive grin, which 
showed all the gold stopping of his teeth. Heaton, 
almost as white as the jeweller, drew a revolver from 
his pocket, and laid it on the table. 

‘‘You don't want that," said Harry, and possessed 
himself coolly of the weapon. 

Gilead, sitting silent with a wicked, glittering eye, 
took a cigarette case from his pocket, and toyed with 
it with his long blanched fingers. 

“You ain’t got no need to trerhble the house 
down," said Gilead, addressing Hump. “ If it had 
been anybody to be afraid of they’d ha’ been in by 
now.^’ 

There was a tap at the door, and the old woman 
thrust her head in. 

“ If you please, sir, here’s Miss Priscilla. She 
says she must see you immediate, and she won’t 
take ‘ no ’ for an answer." 

Gilead returned the cigarette case to his pocket, 
and setting his wheeled chair in motion, passed 
through the doorway into the covered passage lead- 
ing to the house. 

“You needn’t run over me," said his sister’s voice 
from the darkness. “ Get a light, and come into 
one of the front rooms. I want to talk to you." 

Gilead, having called on the old woman for a light, 
followed the girl without a word, but while they stood 
waiting in the darkened hall he cried out suddenly, 

“ There’s some one here. Who is it ? " 

“ It’s all right, Gilead. It’s a friend of mine," 
Priscilla answered. 

The housekeeper came from the lower regions of 


248 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

the house, leaving a candle, and in its light Gilead 
made out a pretty and delicate woman, richly dressed. 
She looked nervous and alarmed, and laid a timid 
hand on Priscilla's shoulder, as if asking for her 
protection. 

“You can go,” said Priscilla, taking the candle 
and addressing the housekeeper. The old woman 
obeyed, and the girl placed a chair for her visitor. 
“This is my brother Gilead. Gilead, this is Mrs. 
Ronald Morton.” 

“Proud to make your acquaintance, m’m,” said 
Gilead, with an angry pretence of politeness, “but 
just now Pm particularly busy.” 

He was wheeling his chair away with a savage 
glance at Priscilla when she interposed herself be- 
tween him and the door. 

“ You’ve got to listen, Gilead,” she said. “ This 
lady married Ronald Morton in Phillipopolis seven 
years ago. I have taken the trouble to find her out 
in Manchester, and she has taken the trouble to come 
down here to identify the m^-n, if he is the man, and 
if he isn’t, to prove to you that you have been 
deceived.” 

“ Well,” said Gilead, with a sigh, “ you’ve got your 
cranks, and I know ’em of old. I shay n’t get rid of 
you till I’ve shown you what a fool you are. Come 
along, both of you.” 

He snatched the candle from the table, and motioned 
imperiously to Priscilla to open the door. Then, 
balancing the candlestick upon his knees, he led the 
way. At the end of the covered passage he paused 
and turned his head. 


XX.] HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 249 

Hold on to that/’ he said roughly to Priscilla, 
extending the candle towards her. Wait there, and 
don’t come in till I tell you.” 

He rapped at the workroom door and was admitted, 
leaving the two women in the passage. 

‘‘ Stow them parcels away,” he whispered to Butter- 
field. “ Cap. throw that blanket over the press. 
Come in ! ” he cried, raising his voice. 

The two women entered, and Priscilla, clutching 
her companion by the arm, held out a denouncing 
finger towards Harry Wynne. 

‘‘That’s the man,” she said, “that calls himself 
Ronald Morton. “ Is that your husband ? ” 

“ No,” said the other, in a frightened voice. “ I 
do not know him.” 

“ Do you mean to tell me,” said Priscilla, turning 
to her brother, “there were two Ronald Morton’s in 
Philippopolis when this lady was married ^ I tell you 
it ain’t the man, and I ought to know. Ronald 
Morton’s wife tells you it ain’t the man, and she 
ought to know. You’ve been fooled, and made a 
tool of.” 

“ Whilst the girl was speaking Gilead kept his 
eyes fixed upon her face, but when she closed he 
turned towards Harry, and saw him in the act of 
sliding one of Mr. Butterfield’s neatly arranged 
parcels into the pocket of his overcoat. 

“ William,” he said, “ you seem to be kinder taking 
this thing to heart.” 

For sole answer Harry set his back against the 
wall, and drew out a revolver, looking about him 
with a calm and wary eye. His face wore a 


250 HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. [chap. 

smile, and he played with the revolver with both 
hands. 

“Thafll do,” said Gilead, turning. ‘‘You ladies 
can retire. You needn’t be frightened, my darlin’s, 
but this gentleman and me is going to have a little 
explanation. Cap’n, be good enough to open the 
door and show the ladies a light.” 

He had drawn out the cigarette case again, and, 
opening it, he took out one of the small, pencil-like 
syringes it contained. 

“ If you ain’t Ronald Morton,” he said, “you ain’t 
William Reid. Now perhaps you’ll be good enough 
to tell us who you are. We want to know and we’re 
going to know.” 

He drew towards him a soiled envelope which lay 
on the table, and made a pretence of pencilling casual 
lines upon it. 

“Come along, stranger. Don’t be bashful. Intro- 
duce yourself.” 

He wheeled his chair round the table, and halted 
within three or four feet of the declared enemy. 
The diabolic little syringe in his hands looked alto- 
gether harmless. His white fingers toyed with it, 
and no man noticed their action as they unscrewed 
the metal cap which covered the point. A greyish 
green crept over the papery whiteness of his face, 
his shining teeth were bared, and tightly clenched 
together, and his eyebrows were raised with a look 
of altogether devilish daring and astuteness. 

“ Who are you, anyway ? ” 

“ My good sir,” said Harry, “ you and your com- 
panions are responsible for any error which may 


XX.] 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


251 


have arisen with respect to my identity. My real 
name, I fancy, concerns you very little. Captain 
Heaton, Mr. Butterfield, and Mr. Whale will recognise 
it readily. Those three hunted me to my ruin seven 
years ago. I think we cry quits now. I am Harry 
Wynne ! ” 

Butterfield leapt to his feet with a stifled excla- 
mation, and clutched his sparse hair with both hands. 
Heaton and Whale rose with an echo of his cry, but 
before either could advance a step Gilead's finger 
touched the button of the syringe, a suffocating 
odour filled the room, and Harry, with a wild con- 
vulsed motion of face and body, gasped once and 
fell forward. As he fell he pressed the trigger of 
the revolver, a shot resounded, and the bullet buried 
itself harmlessly in the floor. 

‘‘ Great Heaven ! ” cried Whale, what have you 
done ? You’ve killed him ! ” 

“ I ain’t yet,” said Gilead, but I’m goin’ to.” 

No hanging job for me,” Whale shrieked, and as 
Gilead stooped over the prostrate man with a second 
syringe in his hand he sent him flying. At that 
instant a crashing and battering noise seemed to 
rise everywhere, and from the two outer doors and 
the window men came pouring in. The front door of 
the house resisted for a while the tremendous blows 
which rained upon it, and the screams of the women 
rang from the darkened passage. The four conspira- 
tors were seized and handcuffed each in the turn ol 
a hand, and Frost stood over the prostrate body. 

“ There’s anhydrous acid here ! ” he cried. “ He 
has been poisoned.” 


252 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES, [chap. xx. 


There were two or three great vessels of water in 
the room, and seizing one of them, he emptied its 
contents from a height upon the head of the uncon- 
scious man. “Help me here!'" He tore the shirt 
collar apart, and dashed water in double handfuls in 
Harry’s face. “ Bring more water ! ” One of the 
plain clothes’ men rushed out with an empty bucket 
towards the mews. He returned with it almost 
instantly. In the meantime Frost had made another 
of the men mount the table, and was handing him 
jug after jug of water to pour upon the back of the 
sufferer’s neck. At length a terrible, convulsive 
shudder ran through Harry’s frame, and be writhed 
as if in mortal agony. 

“ He is dying,” said Vergueil. 

“ No 1 ” said Frost. “ He is saved I** 


UENVOl. 


The Earl and Countess of Bridgebourne sat together 
after breakfast at Bridgebourne Court on a delightful 
morning in early summer. The children — her lady- 
ship boasted two, a healthy and wholesomely im- 
perious prince of five, and a shy and gentle feminine 
copy of him two years younger — had been brought 
down from the nursery to be present at the opening 
of a surprise packet from Uncle Frost, sent to cele- 
brate the younger s birthday. Hogan, still worship- 
fully in love with Lady Bridgebourne, as he had 
been of old 'with Inthia Grey, had solicited the 
honour of bearing the toys to Bridgebourne Court, 
and looked well pleased. The children were so 
exuberant in their joy that they were threatened 
with the nurse, and at length Inthia, rising, led 
them through the folding doors into the next room, 
each bearing a double handful of wonders of Uncle 
Frost’s providing. 

“Hogan,” said Harry, “you’re odd this morning. 
There’s something on your mind.” 

“ Faith, there is then,” the good medico answered, 


254 


HE FELL AMONG THIEVES. 


“I didn’t like to mention it before her ladyship, 
but wun of those rascals is loose again. He’ll do no 
more mischief, poor devil, for he’s dyin’ as fast as 
he knows how to.” 

‘‘Who is it.^” Harry asked. 

“’Tis Captain Heaton, the leader of the whole 
black gang. The prison life has broken him down, 
and he’s out on a ticket-of-leave. He’s lying in a 
garret in Soho, among a lot of Frenchmen and 
Germans, and he’s scarcely a rag to his back or a 
morsel to his mouth.” 

“ Inthia ! ” Harry called. “ Come here for a mo- 
ment.” She entered smilingly. “Tell your story 
over again, Hogan.” 

Lady Bridgebourne listened with a face of pity. 

“ What shall you do, Harry ? The poor wretch 
has been punished heavily enough.” 

“You are /ight, my dear,’' said Harry, “as you 
always are. Hogan, will you be my executioner.^ 
Don’t let him know from whom it comes.” He 
handed a bank-note to the doctor. “ Let me know 
when he needs more.” 


THE END. 


UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY’S 

Announcements 

AND 

New Publications. 


The hooks mentioned in 'his List can- 
be obtained to order jy any Book^ 
seller if net in stocky or ivill be sent 
by the Publisher post free 07 i receipt 
qf price* 


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Strange Crtmeg • • - By Wm. Westall 

Some of the crimes that Mr. Westall recounts are curious and 
extraordinary enough to repay the reader, and he tells his stories 
very well. We have found most interesting the account of the 
escape of Debagorio Mokrievitch from Eastern Siberia. It is a 
thrilling narrative. — Charleston Sun, 

OlOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

95 * DtgbonoreD . . . . By Theo. Gift 

There are touches of simple, natural pathos especially in the 
third volume; and though “Dishonored” is not in any way a 
remarkable novel, it is a novel which cannot fail to please all who 
care for an intrinsically interesting and well-told story. — London 
Spectator. 

The book must be pronounced a really good novel, because it 
fulfils the purpose for which a novel exists, by telling an interesting 
story in a thoroughly interesting way. — Manchestery {Eng.)^ Exam- 
iner. 


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96. ^bc of • By b. l. Farjeon 

We have had some remarkably strong stories from the pen of 
B. L. Farjeon from time to time, but none that exceeds in interest 
and strength the one which comes to us under this title. Mr. Far- 
jeon lays his story in London, and from the cry cf “ Help ” which 
opens the first chapter to the closing paragraph “ Her trials are 
over,” it is full of life, movement, and the most absorbing interest- 
— Buffalo Tidings. 

A most exciting novel, full of interest, with a very complicated 
plot excellently worked out. From first to last the interest is 
admirably sustained. — St. Louis Republic. 

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too. TOe /Iftuetclan By Stepniak and Wm. Westall 

As a beautiful study, beautifully written, and conveying a 
healthy and stimulating lesson, the “ Blind Musician ” is perfect. — 
London Athencenm. 

Whoever reads this literary symphony, and fails to be touched 
to the heart by the writer’s wondrous skill, lacks indeed all mental 
refinement'— Detroit Commercial Advertiser, 

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tot. tTbe Ibouee on tbe Scar • By Bertha Thomas 

Bertha Thomas is known as the author of “The Violin 
Player ” more extensively than by her own name. Her recent work, 
“The House on the Scar,” No. loi in Lovell’s International Series, 
is propably an evidence of the strength gained in a literary way by 
successful literary effort. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 


tC2> tTbe TOIageg of Sin . • By Lucas Malet 

No brighter or more entertaining society novel than this has 
been recently published. The characters and the plot are pleasing, 
and it is told in such an easy style that the interest is retained until 
the endi,— Journal, 

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t03. tTbe Ipbantom • By Rudyard Kipling 

The maturity of philosophic and artistic thought in these 
pages is quite as striking as the faculty for trenchant characteriza- 
tion and the pungent wit. — Brooklyn Eagle, 

Altogether the book is the most readable collection of stories, 
the freshest and most interesting that has appeared for years.—* 
Albany Express, 

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IPS . Botes from tbe "fleW6^ - - By James Payn 

Few little books furnish so much genuine entertainment, com 
bined with shrewd and witty observation, as will be found in 
Mr. Payn’s “Notes from the ‘ News.’ ” — London Daily News. 

It is just the book to be taken up when one has two or three 
minutes to fill. It is full of good stories and interesting facts. — 
London Speaker. 

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XLbC fteepcr Ot tbC 1PCClg6 - By F. W. Robinson 

“ The Keeper of the Keys ” does not fall behind its numerous 
predecessors. There is plenty of humor in the the book as well as 
pathos . — London Atkenceum. 

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110^ ITbe ScuDamoree - ByF.C. Philips and C.J. Wills 

F. C. Philips, whose “As in a Looking-glass” met with so 
large a sale, has recently published, through the John W. Lovell 
Co., by special arrangement, a work entitled “ The Scudamores,” 
which was written in colaboration with C. J. Wills, with whom he 
was also a joint author of “The Fatal Phryne,” which was one of 
the earliest and best numbers of the International Series. He has 
also issued by the same house “ Margaret Byng,” which is said to 
be quite up to his usual standard. 

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\\\. ^be Confegetong of a TOloman - By Mabel Collins 

The many admirers of Miss Collins* former works entitled 
“The Blossom and the Fruit,” “The Idyl of the White Loftrsf’ 
“ Light on the Path,” and “ Through the Gates of Gold,” will wel- 
come this new departure in the line of authorship. 

The author has told this woman’s story so vividly that the 
reader will find difficulty in disassociatmg its relation from the 
actual existence of the writer. 

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116> ipdnce6g Sungbtne • By Mrs. j. H. Riddeu 

This last novel by this popular authoress, among the recent 
issues in LovelFs International Series, fully sustains the character 
of this, the most popular series of novels ever published. 

Mrs. Riddell is a very clever woman, and she puts “brains” into 
all her work. “Princess Sunshine” is full of attractiveness. The 
heroine is charming and the family life of the Gifford’s is capitally 
sketched . — Charleston News. 

CLOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

1 1 Sloane Square Scandal - - By Annie Thomas 

She tells a trivial story very well, and draws men and women 
of the purely conventional sort with considerable skill. — News, 
Charleston. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

1 1 8. Zhc mtobt of tbe 3r^ mt - • Byh. f. wood 

An exceedingly interesting story of London life, with strongly 
marked and well drawn characters, and pleasing dialogue, which, 
combined with the interest of a well laid plot, make it one of the 
best of recent novels. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, $0 CENTS. 

1 1 (Slulte Bnotber Stov^ • • By Jean Ingelow 

It is not generally known that Jean Ingelow, whose poetry has 
found an echoing chord in almost every heart among the English- 
speaking race, is still living in England, a delightful, white-haired 
old lady, who is still engaged in literary pursuits. The John W. 
Lovell Co. have issued, by special arrangement with her, a volume 
entitled “ Quite Another Story,” the tone of which is quite in accord 
with her delightful poems, and which must be read to be thor 
oughly appreciated. 

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126. 1Rame an& jffame 

By Adeline Sergeant and Ewing Lester 

The authors of “Name and Fame” have endeavored with 
more success than might have been expected, to justify a bold step 
across conventional borders. There is a good deal that is readable 
in the book. — London Athenceum^ 

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127. Bramag Of Xlfe • • By George R. Sims 

The man of the London Referee has made himself famous 
for story-telling, both in prose and verse. His name is a guaranty 
of good reading. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

128. %OVCV Ot jfrfcnP ? • By Rosa Nouchette Carey 

Rosa Nouchette Carey cannot be dull if she tries, or, at any 
event, she never tries. Her novels make no pretense to deep pur- 
pose, and “ Lover or Friend ” is a simple love story told with plenty 
of liveliness. — Charleston News, 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS, 

129. famous or Ifntamoug • • By Bertha Thomas 

An unusually well told tale with many original and strongly de* 
fined characters which will place it in the front rank of modern fiction. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

130. tibe Ibouge of • By Mrs. Henry Wood 

More than one million copies of books by the author of “ East 
Lynne ” have been sold, and this last one from her pen will fully 
keep up the average. 

“ The House of Halliwell ” was written many years ago, but 
never published. It differs somewhat in style from the author’s 
subsequent work, but every page bears the unmistakable impress 
of the author of “ East Lynne.” 

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136» /iRauDe^e /ifeanla ■ By Geo. Manville Fenn 

A clever and brightly written novel with a refreshing go about 
it. Its sprightliness is a welcome change from the solemnity, 
yearning and dreariness of some much more high-toned and more 
truly tragic tales. — Glasgow Herald, 

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137. /IRarcla • - • - By W. E. Norris 

Mr. Norris has the light touch of Thackeray, who guides us 
through three or four generations as gracefully as a well-bred man 
might point out the portraits of his ancestors in the family picture 
gallery. — Quarterly Review, 

In portraiture of character and delicate finish of detail, W. E. 
Norris takes high rank among the novelists of the day. — Bostofi 
Globe, 

CLOTUi $1.00. PAPER, 50 CENTS. 


138. lKIl0tmW005 . - - By Marie Corelli 

A story of absinthe and absintheurs, a grim, realistic drama.— 
Athenceum, 

The reader is whirled about like a leaflet amid lurid flashes 
and wild gusts of maddened invective, almost blinded by the efforts 
he or she makes, to realize the tempest which rages through the 
man possessed of the liquid ^\Q,^Kensington Society, , 

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1 39. Ube Ibonorable /IRfgg • • By L,T. Meade 

Delightfully fresh and winning. — Scottsman, 

What we want is a vivid portraiture of character and broad 
and wholesome lessons about life. These Mrs. Meade gives us.—* 
Spectator, 

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S6* XTbC ipartlUg Ot the By M. Betham-Edwards. 

Mrs. Edwards ranks among the first of English novelists of 
the present day, and “ The Parting of the Ways ” is fully up to her 
usual standard. It is a sparkling story with a plot and dialogue 
which pleases and holds the interest throughout. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

S7* XLbe ^Failure ot lSIt3abetb • By E. Frances Poynter 

** The Failure of Elizabeth ” by E. Frances Poynter, is a recent 
work of this author whose “ My Little Lady ” and ** Among the 
Hills ” were successes in London, and established a reputation for 
her which made her much sought after in the literary field. The 
Lovells have secured the right to publish this work and place it on 
the market believing that the name of the author is a sufficient 
guaranty of its merit. — £x. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

88» iSIPg CbilDtCtt • - By Geo. Manville Fenn 

Mr. George Manville Fenn always has a story to tell and 
always tells it well. He knows how to construct a plot and how to 
make character develop itself naturally, and with these two gifts it 
is not hard for a novelist to capture his readers. “ Eli’s Children” 
is a readable novel with plenty of substance in it, and easily 
and fluently written . — Charleston News, 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

89. XLhc JStble 

By David Christie Murray and Henry Hermann 

“ The Bishops’ Bible ” is, indeed, from first to last an unmis- 
takably good novel, for it provides at once a thoroughly interesting 
story and a most real picture of contemporary English village life. 
— London Spectator, 

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97. TOltb In TfrelanP • By Hon. Emily Lawless 

It is written in a beautifully graceful, old-fashioned style, and 
recounts an interesting episode of history. Casually there are 
related some weird and supernatural experiences that are pleasantly 
gruesome . — Christian Union. 

This reproduction of former times, exact and beautiful, with all 
the flavor of the circumstances from which it professes to come 
with a finish and a music which are delightful to the reader, must 
take its place among the highest specimens of historical novels. — 
Public Opinion. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

98. SoIDiers XTbree anP 0tber Storfea By Rudyard Kiplino 

Rudyard Kipling, whose stories have aroused such intense 
interest, is rather small, somewhat unused to women, and there is 
not in his manner a trace of the intense virility of his style in 
writing. He is short in stature, with a pale skin, brown hair, thin 
on top of his high head, brown, near-sighted eyes behind his spec- 
tacles, and wears a close cut mustache. There is a strong, bright 
strain of humor in his friendly manner . — The Independent. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

99. TKUboae wa6 tbe IbanD? • By Mrs. m. e. Braddon 

The freshness and vitality of Mrs. Braddon’s power are a 
perpetual surprise. She holds her own easily with the present 
generation of novelists, and indeed, in style and general scope of 
interest her latest books are the best. She has steadily improved 
in mastery of her art, and one is always sure in taking up one of 
her novels, of finding a strong and well-constructed plot, interesting 
and life-like characters, and a story told in vigorous and picturesque 
English. “ Whose was the Hand ?” is a striking romance, and the 
reader who begins it is not likely to lay it down until the mystery is 
solved . — Charleston News. 

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104> XTbe Xo\?e of a - - By Annie Thomas 

Is the last work from the pen of this popular English writer. The 
book is one of the handsomest which the Lovells have gotten out 
of late, which is saying much, considering the high grade of manu- 
facture which has characterized all their publications of late. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 5O CENTS. 


t05» 1bOW Game 2)ca^? • By J. Fitzgerald Molloy 

J. Fitzgerald Molloy is known to England much more widely 
than to America, yet the intrinsic merit of his work, and the spirited 
crispness of his style, will soon make warm friends for him on this 
side of the water. “ How Came He Dead ? ” No. 105 in I.ovell’s 
International Series, is replete with stirring incidents, to’d in smooth 
and entertaining English. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 


106. TOc lDtC0mte^6 • - By Esme Stuart 

Is a bright and lively novel, full of action and incident, with a plot 
bordering slighCy enthe romantic, and with a pretty comedy interest 
that at once suggests a dramatic setting of the story . — Boston Gazette^ 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 


107. t?cverenD (Bentleman - By j. Maclaren Cobban 

J. Maclaren Cobban has issued, through the Lovell publishing 
house, a volume entitled “A Reverend Gentleman” wnich has 
already appeared serially in England. From the same house he 
issued his very successful work entitled “ Master of His Fate,” 
which met with a wide sale and was much admired for its 
originality. 

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1 12» Souring tbc TOLluD - - By E. Lynn Linton 

It will be read with interest by many, as the descriptions are 
graphic and much of the conversation is smart and sometimes 
brilliant. On the whole, the book is a satisfactory contribution to 
the library of fiction . — Suitday JVews, Detroit. 

CLOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

113* 21 /IftarkeD ilftan - - ByAda Cambridge 

-I mm ■■ ^ 

She gives promise of taking a high place among English 
novelists. The book is bright and unconventional, and there is no 
denying its power . — Albany Argus, 

Ada Cambridge gives us something to think of in her book 
very differently, no doubt, according to our different natures. 
Herein the book differs from most novels, which avoid all food for 
reflection. The descriptions both of still and active life are true.— 
London Afhenceum, 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

114* /iibargaret - • • By F. C. Philips 

‘‘Margaret Byng” will find its admirers among the class who 
gave cordial welcome to “As in a Looking-Glass ” and “Young 
Mr. Ainslie’s Courtship,” former popular works by this author. 
The story opens in a smart little house in South Street Park Lane, 
London, and contains many of the elements which united make a 
refreshing romance in which the good are very good and the bad 
are very bad indeed . — Kansas City Journal, 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, $0 CENTS. 

1 15* 3Fot ^ne anP tbe TOotID • By m. Betham-Edwards 

“ For One and the World” is the latest work from the pen of 
M. Betham-Edwards. This lady has the masterful touch of an 
erudite man, with the keen, intuitive, womanly perceptions of her 
sex. The two combined make her work admirably instructive, 
while never losing their completeness of plot and interest. 

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120. IbeartOtGoIg) - - - By L. T. Meadb 

Adaptibility and sympathy are two prominent qualities of L. T. 
Meade, the author of this story. — Literary World. 

ILOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

121. tTbe TlIIlor& anP ZhC TOIl - By James Payn 

The characters are well drawn, the conversations are vivacious. 
— Literary World. 

CLOTH, $1,00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS 

122. 2)limpg . • - - By Mrs. Louisa Parr 

A healthy, interesting and well-told story, easy to read and 
belongs to a class of which we find only too few of among the 
novels of the present day. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

123. XTbe :fl3Iac?t :fSox /llbutC)er 

By The Man Who Discovered the Murderer 

A very good detective story, simply and pleasingly told. — JVeze 
Bedford Journal. 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

124. ZbC Great /IRIII Street By Adeline Sergeant 

“The Great Mill St. Mystery,” by Adeline Sergeant, is a stor^ 
which holds the reader’s interest until the end, a sort of old-fash- 
ioned story with an elaborate plot, plenty of incident and entertain- 
ing conversation. — Omaha Excelsior. 

CLOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER COVER, 50 CENTS. 

125. between XitC anP Death • By Frank Barrett 

Barrett’s reputation as a writer of stories is taking first rank. 
His stories are exciting and thoroughly original. — St. Louis Republic, 

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131^ TRutnno an5 Qtbct StoviCB • - By OuiDi\ 

The workmanship is excellent throughout, and the stories have 
the positive charms of simple grace and pathos . — Manchester 
Examiner, 

CLOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

t32» !HIa6! - - By Rhoda Broughton 

This most popular author has produced an old-fashioned 
English society novel full of incident and interest. Everyone will 
want to read it a second time. 

The book is charming, full of esprity and reveals the master in 
the handling of a theme, which, in other hands, would be hardly 
possible. It is a book that can safely be recommended to lovers of 
good light literature , — Home Journal, 

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133, an^ Bnnettc • • By B. L. Farjeon 

The title of the Dickens of to-day seems to be very generally 
conceded by the literary critics to Farjeon. His readers cannot 
fail to be impressed with the similarity in characters and style. 

CLOTH, $ 1 . 00 . PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

134, XLhC 2)emontaC • • By Walter Besant 

A charming tale, of constancy which irresistibly draws out our 
deepest sympathy. One of those perfect pictures of a true woman’s 
love which few can conjure up more cleverly than Mr, Besant,— 
Temperance Record, 

CLOTH, $1.00. PAPER, so CENTS. 

135, :fi$rax^e Ibeart an^ ^rue - By Florence Marryat 

The very name of Marryat seems to have become associated 
with reading matter of strong literary mexii.^Journalist. 

“ Brave Heart and True ” is Florence Marryat’s last and one of 
her best novels . — Denver News* 

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140. H asttter JBfrtbrfflbt By Dora Russell 

“It is well written, clever in its character drawing, and interest- 
ing generally.”— Saturday Gazette. 

“ Miss Russell does not disappoint those readers who like 
enough events, jealousies, etc., to make the chapters exciting. — 
Portland Press. 

CLOTH, $1.00 ; PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

141. B 5)oubIe ftnot. - By George Manville Fenn 

“ Mr. Fenn is easily in the front rank cf English novelists, and 
there is a freshness and breeziness about his stories that always gain 
for them many and delighted readers.” — Albany Argus. 

CLOTH, $1.00; PAPER, $0 CENTS. 

142> B ffoc . . . By G. a. Henty 

“ The works of this author are so well known that it is unneces* 
sary to say anything in regard to his reputation which is well 
established.” — Detroit Adzertiser. 

CLOTH, $I.Co; PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

143. *lllrttb - ' - • By S. Baring-Gould 

“ The author’s wealth of illustration and anecdote is wonder- 
ful.” — .Charleston News. 

CLOTH, $1.00; PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

144. Baugbter • - - By a. Sergeant 

Adeline Sergeant has established for herself an enviable repu- 
tation as the writer of novels which are worth while. Her keen 
insight into human nature, and remarkable easy flow of language in 
depicting the same, has made her one of the most saleable of 
English novelists. 

CLOTH, $1.00; PAPER, 50 CENTS. 

145. B /IRfnt of /[RonC\> • By George Manville Fenn 

Fenn’s novels are all interesting, the characters are original and 
the local coloring is always correct. 

“ Everything Mr. Fenn writes is interesting.” — Pittsburgh Dis^ 
patch. 

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LOVELL’S International series— Continued. 


>’o. Cts. 


99. Whose WAS THE Hand? M. E. 

Brad don 50 

100. The Blind Musician. Step- 

iiiak and William Westall 50 
lul. The House on the Scar. 

Bertha Thomas 50 

103. The Wages oe Sin. L. Malet 50 

103. The Phantom ’Rickshaw. 

Rudy ard Kipling 50 

104. The Love of a Lady. Annie 

Thomas 50 

105. How Came He Dead? J. 

Fitzgera’d Molloy 50 

106. The Vicomte’s Bride. Esme 

btuart 50 

107. A Reverend Gentleman. 

J. Maclartn Cobban 50 

108. Notes from the ‘News.’ 

James Payn 50 

109. The Keeper of the Keys. 

F. W. Robinson 50 

110. The Scudamores. F. C. 

1 Philips and C. J. Wills. ... 50 

111. The Confessions of a 

Woman. Mabel Collins. . 50 

112. Sowing the Wind. E. Lynn 

Linton 50 

114. Margaret Byng. F. C. 

Philips 50 

115. For One and the World. 

M. Bet ham-Ed wards iO 

116. Princess Sunshine. Mrs. J. 

11. Riddell 50 

117. Sloanb Square Scandal. 

Annie Thomas 50 

118. The Night of the 3d Ult. 

11. F. Wood 50 

119. Quite Another Story. 

Jean Ingelow 50 

120. Heart of Gold. L T. Meade 50 

121. The Word and the Will. 

Janies Payn 50 

122. Dumps. Mrs. Louisa Parr.. 50 

123. The Black Box Murder. 

By the man who discovered 
the murderer 50 

124. The Great Mill St. Mys- 

tery. Adeline Sergeant 50 
12.5. Between Life and Death. 

Frank Barrett 50 

126. Name and Fame. Adeline 

Sergeant and Ewing Lester 50 

127. Dramas of Life. G. R. Sims. 50 

128. Lover or Friend? Rosa 

Nouchette Carey 50 

129. Famous or Infamous. Ber- 

tha Thomas 50 

130. The House of Halliwell. 

Mrs. Henry Wood 50 

131. Ruffino. Ouida 50 

132. Alas 1 Rhoda Broughton. . . 50 

133. Basil and Annette. B. L. 

Far.]’ eon 50 

134. The Demoniac. W. Besant 50 

135. Brave Heart and True. 

Florence Marrvat 50 

136. Lady Maude’s Mania. G. 

Manville Fenn 50 


No. Cts 

1S7. Marcia. W. E. Norris.... 50 

138. Wormwood. Marie Corelli. 50 

139. The Honorable Miss. L. 

T. Meade 50 

140. A BitterBirthright. Dora 

Russell 50 

141. A Double Knot. G. M. Fenn 50 

142. A Hidden Foe. G. A. Henty .50 

143. Urith. S. Baring- Gould. . . 50 

144. Brooke’s Daughter. By 

Adeline Sergeant 50 

145. A Mint of Money. George 

Manville Fenn 50 

146. A Lost Illusion. By Leslie 

Keith 50 

147. Forestalled. By M. Beth- 

am-Ed wards 50 

148. The Risen Dead. By Flor- 

• ence Marry at 50 

149. The Roll of Honor. By 

Annie Thomas 50 

150. A Baffling Quest. By 

Richard Dowling 50 

151. The Laird o’ Cockpen. By 

“Rita ’ 50 

152. A Life for a Love. By L. 

T. Meade 50 

153. Mine Own People. By 

Rudyard Kipling 50 

1.54. Eight Days. By R. E. Forrest 50 

155. The Heart of a Maid. By 

Beatrice Kipling 50 

156. The Heir Presumptive and 

Heir Apparent. By Mrs. 
Oliphant 50 

157. In the Heart of the Storm. 

By Maxwell Gray 50 

158. An Old Maid’s Love. By 

Maarten Maartens 50 

159. There Is No Death. By 

Florence Marryat 50 

160. The Soul of Countess 

Adrian. By ,Mrs. Camp- 
bell- Praed 50 

161. For the Defense. . By B. 

L., Far jeon 50 

162. SuNny Stories and Some 

Shady Ones. By J. Payne 50 

163. 'Eric Brighteyes. H. Rider 

Haggard 50 

164. My First L<^veand My Last 

Love. Mrs. J IT. Riddell 50 

165. The World, The Flesh, and 

The Devil. By Miss M. E. 


Braddon 50 

166. He Fell Among Thieves. By 

David Christie Murray and 
Henry H erman 50 

167. Ties— Human and Divine. 

By B. L. Far jeon 50 

168. The Freaks of Lady For- 

tune. By May Crommelin 50 

169. Maisie Derrick. By Kath- 

erine S. Macquoid 50 

170. A Fatal Past. By Dora Rus- 

sell 50 

171. Miss Wentworth’s Idea. By , • 

W. E. Norris 50 



HOTEL. In addition to being favorite in 
Fall and Winter, it is most desirable, cool 
and delightful for Spring and Summer 
visitors. Located in the heart of New 
York City, at Fifth Avenue and 58th and 
59th Streets, and overlooking Central 
Park and Plaza Square. A marvel of lux- 
ury and comfort. Convenient to places of 
amusement and stores. Fifth Ave. stages. 
Cross-town and Belt line horse cars pass 
the doors. Terminal Station Sixth Ave. 
elevated road within half a block. The 
hotel is absolutely fire-proof. Conducted 
on American and European plans. Sum- 
mer rates. F. A. Hammond. 


nURRflY HILL HOTEL 





Park Avenue, 40th and 41st Sts 

NEW YORK. 

HUNTING 6- HAMMOND. 


I OC ATED one block from Grand Central Su 
^ tion. A Hotel of superior excellence o 


both the American and European plans. 1 
occupies the highest grade in New York, and 1 
the healthiest of locations. 


FOR TRANSIENT GUESTS, 

Tourist Travelers, or as a Residence fo 
Families, no Healthier or Pleasanter place 
can be found in New York City. 


Patrons of the Murray Hill Hotei. hav 
their Baggage Transferred to and from th 
Grand Central Station Free of Charge. 


LOVELL DiAnOND 



$85 Strictly High Grade 


FOUR STYLES, 1891 MODELS, 


FOR 


LADIES AND GENTS 


Loveirs BOYS’ and GIRLS’ Safety, 

PRICE. $35. 

BICYCLE CATALOGUE FREE. 


JOHN P. LOVELL ARMS CO., 

manufacturers, 

NGTON STREET, 
BOSTON, MASS. 


Everybody’s T3rpewriter. For Young and Old 

Price, $15.00 and $20.00. 


LIVE AGENTS WANTED. 


SEND FOR FULL PARTICULARS. 


Send 6c. in Stamps for 1 00 Page Illustrated Sporting Goods Catalogue 


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